Tata Motors-owned British luxury carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to cut 2,000 jobs globally in the next financial year. Britain's largest car manufacturer anticipates a lay-off of around 2,000 people from its global salaried workforce. The auto major has around 40,000 employees worldwide, as per its 2019-20 annual report.
"We anticipate a net reduction of around 2,000 people from our global salaried workforce in the next financial year," JLR said in a statement on Wednesday. The company said that a "full review of the Jaguar Land Rover organisation is already underway".
JLR, however, maintained that the organisational review will not impact hourly paid, manufacturing employees.
The announcement came a day after the UK-based company unveiled plans to go entirely electric by 2025 and become net zero on carbon emissions by 2039 as it joined a global race to roll out clean-energy vehicles. By 2030, it is anticipated that 100 per cent of Jaguar cars, and 60 per cent of Land Rovers, will be equipped with zero-tailpipe powertrains, it said.
The company had also announced that Land Rover would add six pure electric variants in the next five years and future Jaguar models would be built exclusively on a pure electric architecture. The first all-electric variant of Land Rover will debut in 2024, it had said.
For October-December quarter of current fiscal, JLR reported strong financial results with improved pre-tax profits and its best-ever third quarter cash flow. Retail sales were 128,469 vehicles in Q3 FY21, up 13.1 per cent on Q2 but still 9 per cent lower than pre-COVID levels a year ago. Sales in China were up 20 per cent on the prior quarter and up 19.1 per cent year-on-year. Sales of the new Land Rover Defender grew to 16,286 units, a 66 per cent increase on the prior quarter.
Profit before tax (PBT) was 439 million pounds (after 37 million pounds of exceptional charges), up 374 million pounds from Q2 and 121 million pounds from a year ago. The significant improvement reflected revenue of 6 billion pounds, up 1.6 billion pounds from Q2 while still lower than pre-COVID levels a year ago, with favourable sales mix, cost performance and partial reversal of prior-period reserves for emissions and residual values. EBIT margin improved to 6.7 per cent (400 bps year-on-year).
Free cash flow in the third quarter was 562 million pounds, primarily reflecting the strong PBT and favourable working capital after 675 million pounds of investment spending, the company said. Cash and short-term investments increased to 4.5 billion pounds, including 1.35 billion pounds of five- and seven-year bonds issued in the quarter. Total liquidity was 6.4 billion pounds including a 1.9 billion pounds undrawn revolving credit facility, it added.
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