Jaguar Land Rover confirms plan to cut 4,000 jobs over two years

JLR’s proposal to slash 12% of the UK workforce threatens to provide an early reality check to the new prime minister Andy Burnham’s pledge to “reindustrialise” Britain.

JLR’s profits have tumbled as it wrestles with strong competition in the global car market, Trump’s US tariffs and last year’s hack, which led to the shutdown of its factories.

“As part of this transformation, we will reduce our global workforce by around 4,000 roles over the next two years. We recognise this will be difficult news for colleagues affected, and are committed to supporting everyone with care, fairness and respect.”

The business minister, Jonathan Reynolds, has ruled out stumping up taxpayer’s cash to deter the company, which is headquartered in Coventry, from pursuing the redundancies.

Reynolds will on Tuesday hold crunch talks with Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, and Balaji.

Graham is expected to push for JLR to favour retraining and redeployment over compulsory job losses, if JLR cannot secure enough voluntary redundancies to meet its target.

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The cuts, first reported by the Sunday Times, will be weighted towards more senior roles in management and research and development rather than shop floor production workers, sources said at the weekend.

Speaking on the BBC on Sunday, Reynolds indicated that no bailout would be available but hinted at other options to support carmakers.

The government last year agreed to underwrite a £1.5bn loan to JLR to help it recover from the hack but the carmaker has not tapped the facility.

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