JLR staff cuts.

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Col Lamb
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Post by Col Lamb »

Sad news for many workers as 5000 jobs to go at JLR.

JLR blame diesel uncertainty and poor sales to China amongst the factors.

It is not a good position to be in that at the stroke of a pen of some bean counter your life turns upside down.

Whatever the faults may be with JLR and the cr4p sales and after sales service its the folks in the factory that will suffer the most.
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Wing Commander
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Post by Wing Commander »

...from listening to Radio 4 this morning, the 5,000 very sad UK job losses seem to be part of a plan that is already in action to shift jobs from the UK to abroad, where, apart from other factors, I'm sure the labour costs are much less.

As you say, Col, Brexit, China and diesel-gate have all been blamed. China is JLR's biggest market. And 90% of JLR cars sold are diesels.

From the BBC News website:

"Today's job losses come on top of cuts made last year.

◾In Solihull, 1,000 agency workers were laid off in 2017.
◾At Halewood in Merseyside, 180 agency staff were cut.
◾In Castle Bromwich, 1,000 employees were put on a three day week for the last three months of 2018.

Meanwhile, Jaguar has been increasing headcount elsewhere in the world.

In China it has hired 4,000 workers since 2014.

Most recently it announced it would move all production of the Land Rover Discovery to a new plant in Slovakia with plans to hire up to 3,000 workers."
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Post by Deleted User 1874 »

Col Lamb wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 10:09 am Whatever the faults may be with JLR and the cr4p sales and after sales service its the folks in the factory that will suffer the most.
From the BBC report "Management, marketing and administrative roles are expected to be hardest hit, but some production staff may also be affected."

So on the face of it looks like more of a cull of white collar UK staff.
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pmg
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Post by pmg »

JLR are already smaller than the "VW group", BMW and Mercedes and struggle to compete due to lack of scale. Culling management/non-production jobs in that context is very short term and will lead to them falling further behind and their ultimate failure
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Post by Kasfranks99 »

When around 80% of European car sales from JLR are diesels then that’s a problem since diesels have been demonised.
China slowdown has hit them hard
Uncertainty across various markets etc also is a problem.
They have been too slow to more into the EV market too.
A number of factors.

Ford will announce later today job cuts across Europe.
When there is uncertantaty car sales are going to be hit as we have been seeing for a little while now.
Hopefully voluntary redundacies and management cuts not making it too painful for the factory worker may be the positive side.
GTS 😀
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Post by Deleted User 1874 »

Kasfranks99 wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:51 pm They have been too slow to more into the EV market too.
More like an over-dependence on diesel engines as none of their competitors have seriously moved into the EV market yet. You could even argue Jaguar are leading the charge in their particular EV sector with the iPace. But I really don't think their underlying problems have anything to do with EVs or even much to do with the demise of diesels, although I'm sure the latter is a factor. Ultimately it comes down to the quality of the product and service, both of which are a bit dubious. Being UK based is probably not helping them much either, especially with all the Brexit nonsense going on.
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Post by Wing Commander »

Peteski wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 1:55 pm More like an over-dependence on diesel engines as none of their competitors have seriously moved into the EV market yet. You could even argue Jaguar are leading the charge in their particular EV sector with the iPace. But I really don't think their underlying problems have anything to do with EVs or even much to do with the demise of diesels, although I'm sure the latter is a factor. Ultimately it comes down to the quality of the product and service, both of which are a bit dubious. Being UK based is probably not helping them much either, especially with all the Brexit nonsense going on.
On the contrary, for a company where 90% of cars built are diesel, I think the current diesel-gate situation has had a major impact. Maybe not as severe as the halving in demand of cars from the Chinese market, but nonetheless, still a significant impact. Can't think of another manufacturer of the scale of JLR where diesel accounts for 90% of production...
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Post by Kasfranks99 »

Peteski wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 1:55 pm
Kasfranks99 wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 12:51 pm They have been too slow to more into the EV market too.
More like an over-dependence on diesel engines as none of their competitors have seriously moved into the EV market yet. You could even argue Jaguar are leading the charge in their particular EV sector with the iPace. But I really don't think their underlying problems have anything to do with EVs or even much to do with the demise of diesels, although I'm sure the latter is a factor. Ultimately it comes down to the quality of the product and service, both of which are a bit dubious. Being UK based is probably not helping them much either, especially with all the Brexit nonsense going on.
I completely agree that the quality of the product and service are not great. Certainly my experience with them was poor. But I don’t think that’s the cause of their current problems.

The China situation Has had.a massive impact for them. They make huge profits there.
When diesel sales are 80% + of your business then in the current climate that’s an issue. Other manufacturers don’t have such a high level of reliance of diesels.
They should of had a hybrid out like Volvo have some time ago would of helped things imo.
Volvo are doing well and reacted to things much quicker imo.

Some of the above is not their doing (China, diesel as example) but they needed to move much quicker than they did when so much of the business is reliant on a few factors.
GTS 😀
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Post by VanB »

I am less sure that diesel is their main issue, after all it is still the fuel of choice for most large, load-lugging, 4x4s and I very much doubt that the traditional Land Rover/Range Rover buyer is particularly worried about the diesel issue.

I think China is a massive issue for them coupled with the fact that their product range has so many overlaps and ill-defined sectors and they have nearly all become very ugly with plastic interiors and at a premium price. In short, I think their product line is confused and all over the place and far from premium.
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Post by Deleted User 1874 »

VanB wrote: Thu Jan 10, 2019 2:41 pm I am less sure that diesel is their main issue, after all it is still the fuel of choice for most large, load-lugging, 4x4s and I very much doubt that the traditional Land Rover/Range Rover buyer is particularly worried about the diesel issue.
That was my take on it too. Diesel is still very much alive in their sector. They will need to reduce their diesel dependency in future, but I'm not buying it as an excuse for their current predicament.
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