Suppliers to Jaguar Land Rover and agency staff at Sunderland’s Nissan plant look set to be part of major job losses across the UK motor industry.
On the week when workers were set to return to JLR’s Merseyside plant following months of furlough, it is expected that more than 400 jobs could be at risk of redundancy at one of the company’s major suppliers, Sertec in Warwickshire. The company is undergoing redundancy consultations with 428 staff across six sites in the Midlands, it is thought that the redundancies represent almost a third of the company’s 1,300 workforce.
Sertec supply body shell components to Jaguar Land Rover and also to Nissan which announced that it will not be extending the contracts of close to 250 temporary workers at its plant in the north east. This week a Nissan Juke was the first car off the production line as the company gets workers back on the factory floor following an extensive review of safety procedures.
A statement said: "Nissan continually adjusts production to meet market demand. Given current business conditions in Europe we are facing a period of reduced volumes in our Sunderland plant.
“Unfortunately, therefore, we will not be extending the contracts of 248 temporary manufacturing staff at the plant."
The job losses at Sertec in the Midlands are a worrying sign of a slowdown across the industry, the company returned to work on May 11th, with the company’s CEO, Grant Adams, warning that jobs could be under threat. “It is unlikely demand will return for a considerable amount of time, and there will be inevitable actions we will need to take to protect the business,” he said.