Workers at Halewood - Jaguar Land Rover’s Merseyside factory – have this week off as the company freezes production at the plant.
The planned stoppage, announced last month, is meant to avoid stockpiling cars that aren’t selling. Halewood’s 2500 staff will return to work as usual next week.
It’s not the first time that JLR has idled its factories this year. Falling sales have meant four-day weeks at JLR’s Halewood, Castle Bromwich and Solihull plants, although workers were previously required to go in for training days.
JLR says it will be “evaluating production in line with the market downturn”.
Other UK car factories have also been forced to reduce output in response to a decline in demand for new cars.
Last week Nissan announced that the Micra line at Sunderland would lie idle for four weeks between now and the New Year.
Bentley’s factory in Crewe is already running a three-day week. And Ford’s Transit line in Southampton has also introduced non-production days.
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Re: JLR workers sent home
JLR are now paying the price for years of upsizing their vehicles to satisfy mainly US tastes. The smaller LR and hybrids may be too little, too late. At least the exchange rate will work in their favour. Even more so, I suspect, when the US elections are over and the dollar strengthens worldwide.