While confirming this year’s holiday dates for their employees worldwide, Jaguar Land Rover has also confirmed that they will be shutting down production for an additional week between the 8th and 12th of April, due to potential Brexit disruption.
This means that all three of its UK-based manufacturing facilities will be affected, which was to be expected as the automaker had previously warned about the impact of Brexit. Meanwhile, production in China has already been cut because of dwindling demand.
No-deal Brexit a possibility
With Britain on track to leave the European Union at the end of March, Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan lost out in parliament last week, meaning that a departure from the EU without a deal in place is looking more likely than ever before.
Earlier this month, JLR had already announced plans to cut up to 5,000 jobs in the UK, a move that’s expected to include both blue and white collar employees. This decision was made because of poor sales in 2018, which were down 4.6% compared to the previous year – 592,708 vehicles sold in total. Still, that’s nothing compared to the 21.6% decrease in numbers experienced in China.
The automaker stated that “weaker market conditions, primarily relating to diesel and Brexit also weighed on sales,” with numbers dropping 1.5% in the UK and 7.8% in Europe.
It has also been reported that Jaguar Land Rover will not be attending this year’s Geneva Motor Show in March for financial reasons.
