Land Rover to add 275 jobs as sales pick up

Tata-owned Land Rover said on Thursday that it will add 275 new jobs immediately at its production facility at Solihull in West Midlands, to meet rising demand after sales improved for seven consecutive months.

"Land Rover is to create 275 new jobs at the company's manufacturing plant in Solihull, West Midlands. The additional positions are required to support an increase in demand following the seventh consecutive month of improved sales," the company said in a statement.

In March this year, Land Rover recorded highest ever sales in the UK at over 11,300 units in the company's 62 years of history. It also registered a growth of 67 per cent in the month compared to the year-ago period. The cumulative sales in 2009-10, however, declined by 6 per cent at 146,564 units.

"These additional positions are excellent news for the manufacturing industry in the Midlands. It comes as a result of a phenomenal response received from customers and the media to the award winning 2010 model year range, giving Land Rover an incredible start to the year," Land Rover managing director Phil Popham said.

The Solihull plant employs over 5,000 people and the "extra 275 agency positions are required to start immediately" to boost further the demand for the new vehicle.

The facility also manufactures various other models, including the Defender and Discovery 4.

In December 2009, Jaguar Land Rover had announced that it would hire over 100 graduates and under-graduates in 2010 to fill up vacancies across different verticals as sales started returning on track after a long bumpy ride.

In September last year, with the global economic recovery on the horizon, JLR had announced a decade-long new business strategy that would see pound 800 million (over Rs 6,200 crore) investment going for developing eco-friendly products.

The new strategy had envisaged closing down one of the two JLR plants in West Midlands -- Castle Bromwich or Solihull -- while transferring the workforce to the other as part of strategy to streamline and become cost competitive.

It had also said 800 new jobs would be added to JLR's other plant at Liverpool, where Land Rover's new vehicle LRX Concept would be manufactured.

However, last month JLR was reportedly reviewing the plans to close one of the units on account of a recent revival in sales and was also likely to seek the UK government's assistance for launching new models.

JLR has a total of about 14,500 workers spread across three plants in the UK.

After being hit by the economic crisis, JLR swung from profit in 2007 to losses of over Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) in 2008-09.

After effects, included a cut in production by more than 1,00,000 units and over 2,500 workers, while pays were frozen and bonuses cancelled for others.