News : Jaguar Land Rover creates 800 new jobs

Range Rover L405 (1)

Jaguar Land Rover has announced the creation of 800 at its Solihull factory. The company’s growth in production numbers is a reflection of booming global sales, and the new jobs are to support future growth plans.

More than 200 of these roles are supported by the UK Government’s Regional Growth Fund. There’s already 6000 employees at Solihull, but the injection of new staff is needed to meet demand for new cars in Asian markets. JLR is confident of further growth in 2013. In December the firm also said it was considering building cars in Saudi Arabia.

If it went ahead, it would be the Indian-owned company’s second overseas manufacturing plant, after agreeing to build a plant in Shanghai. More than 200 of the 800 new UK jobs to be created are supported by the Government’s Regional Growth Fund. They will be taken on one-year contracts to start with and will be converted to full time workers should market conditions remain strong.

The company has also confirmed record sales in 2012 – with retail sales up 30% following strong market performances from the UK, China and the USA. The company sold 357,773 vehicles, and China is now its largest market with a 72 per cent increase in sales to 71,940 – this compared with 68,333 (also up 19 per cent) in the UK.

The news makes up for the recent disappointment of the recent 800 job losses announced by Honda at its Swindon factory.

Keith Adams

22 Comments

  1. Been speaking with a dealer principal at a L/Rover dealer up here in the Scottish Highlands, and he has told me there is already a 12-14 month waiting list for the new Range Rover.

    Recession….what recession?

  2. Not sure if the announcement can ‘make up’ for those jobs lost in Swindon. For those workers, it will be a personal tragedy- and they may not necessarily be able to get work at Solihull. I hope that that would be possible of course, and wish them all the best.

    After all, those Honda workers will have been well trained.

  3. Isn’t it wonderful to see how dramatically things have changed for JLR in 3 years? Just click on the related link “1800 jobs under threat at Jaguar Land Rover” above to see what I mean.

  4. Yes, it wasn’t long ago when JLR were going to shut a plant, with Solihull the favourite for the chop…

  5. Great news and the result of building something that people want to own.

    We have to make sure the ecomentalists are not allowed to destroy this business with their green washed communism.

  6. But I’ve very interested in Ecology.

    I’m also a capitalist, I drive a Land Rover, am really pleased to see JLR doing so well and this is by far and away the greenest full size RR built. I’m proud of the badge on the front of the Land Rover that says that all CO2 from manufacture and the first 45,000 miles is fully offset.

    I’m not sure that using Top Gear cliches and stereotyping greens is helpful.

    Good luck to you Land Rover. I’ll have the entry level diesel version thanks! (I wish!)

  7. Wow,45000 miles fully offset? our MD does 70k in his L322 every year alone,and he is ill with the thing,a grand a service.Still its better than a broken jaw i suppose.I have never bought into the green thing and this CO2 tax that has been foisted upon motorists and soon industry-which incidently has TATA concerned.
    Lets just see how many are fawning over diesels next year with E6 regs-SCR cats/DPF’s and slip cats plus the 12 sensors on the system,the adblue/urea additive-any problems it will not start.A nightmare in the making.So i would plump for petrol i think,very pleasing that there is strong exports which is what the country needs,i also mirror the view that they stay at top of thier game which is where this company belongs.

  8. While you may not have “bought into this green thing”, I’m glad that my daughter isn’t having to grow up breathing all the cr*p in that I had to when I was her age!

    The development of ever cleaner cars creates a lot of high value UK based development jobs at companies like JLR in Gaydon and Ford at Dunton.

    Roll on Euro 6 legislation too and I don’t particularly miss that sickly blue haze that diesels used to pump out onto our streets before DPF’s existed.

  9. All this “diesel is perfect” stuff gets my goat a bit. I am constantly seeing diesel cars puffing out the black, filthy, stuff where I live, and I doubt this is unusual for my town.
    Just bear in mind that there is only so much diesel you can get out of a single barrel of oil, even using the catalytic cracker. Each barrel of crude contains a percentage of the petrol component, and it is not possible to convert this to diesel,soit has to be used up somehow, and this is now done by exporting the surplus to countries not quite so hung up on so-called “green diesels”. So the CO2 from petrol is still produced as it always was, only in a different country. If the export orders dry up, the refineries will burn it off at the stack.

    Madness !!

  10. @13,you are still alive? ok, fair do’s they got rid of lead.I would be more worried about my daughter getting obese than what comes out of tailpipes as regards diesels,i dare say a few are affected by it but cigs and alcohol do worse trust me.I dont like being mugged for green energy which is complete heretic bullshit because everyone behind these schemes like silly,useless windwills are getting an earner out of it all cloaked in the greater good of saving the planet,we survived the industrial revolution so i think we can sleep easy knowing that we will wake up the following day,im all for clean air i just dont want to pay for it.I dont want to end up driving a shit car that i hate just because i would be taxed to death for having a choice,in any case i think after the E6 regs come into play people with these diesels and the after treatment systems will be regretting thier purchase.I strongly believe petrol is the future for the time being.
    I am all for clean air,i just dont want green eco nonsense preached to me and pay for it,i just want to enjoy any car i want without getting fleeced every time i turn around,pretty much like i am now.Would you buy a car new that doesnt work?so why do we have to pay increased energy bills for windfarms that dont work?

  11. Jaguar Land Rover are certainly on a roll. You would have to go back to 1968 to see what was Jaguar Rover Triumph coming close to doing as well. Hope it encourages BMW to reintroduce a Triumph Spitfire and Dolomite, and MG to keep investing in new more desirable products. If JLR introduced a true P6 replacement to be sold through Land Rover dealers then things would as they should be

  12. @17, Could BMW pull off making a Triumph?They could not stand the thought of having Rovers compete against thier product when they owned them, i dont think there are any legs in that at the moment.

  13. @17 Simon: Ooh yes! Against all the odds, I’m still holding out for a new Rover-badged P6 replacement from JLR. They could easily do it. All I need to do is get in the ear of the right people with a thoroughly convincing argument…

  14. This is great news for Jaguar Land Rover and I am pleased to read so many positive comments about the company.

    As for launchng a Rover-badged P6 replacement from JLR, there is still a lot of work for the company to do in terms of further reducing its cost base through greater component sharing between the Jaguar and Land Rover operations, before that could be considered. Particularly in terms of reducing the number of platforms used and planning the next generation of engines developed from either the existing designs or in collaboration with anothr manufacturer. There is also a need to undertake further brand-building for Jaguar to restore its kudos based on previous associations with poor quality and an ‘olde worlde’ image, which will have deterred a number of buyers.

    Make no mistake, Jaguar Land Rover has come a long way over the past four years, as their profits and record sales demonstrate and it all spells good news for their future success. But there is still a lot to do before they could potentially consider introducing another brand, whatever it might be.

    @ WarrenL:

    Try Dr Ralph Speth, the CEO of Jaguar Land Rover, as he is very approachable and I have already suggested something along similar lines to what you propose (although that does not mean it will ultimately get sanctioned).

  15. Tigger

    You misunderstand me, like you I am all for caring for the environment after all its where I live. If you want to know what I call the “ecomentalist” listen to the leader of the Green Party explaining the world you would like to see. It is nothing more than a cut and shut of Marx and Leninists philosophy with a green re-spray, in her world there is no place for the car let alone a Range Rover.

    As someone who cares about the environment, and having lived and worked in the former Soviet Union I know that the one thing that destroys up the environment is a failed economy and nothing destroys it more than socialism.

  16. This article title needs re-writing since JLR added another 150 vacancies for apprentices, so that is 950 jobs!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.