Coronavirus impact: 20,000 members of Jaguar Land Rover's UK workforce furloughed
Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover has furloughed 20,000 members form its entire UK workforce consisting of 40,000 members. The British automobile giant mentions that roles of these members were not critical during this period of temporary disruption. And their wages would be topped up to ensure they get their complete base salary for the month of April. The senior management has announced a cut in their salaries wherein Chief executive Sir Ralf Speth will be drawing 30 per cent lower, the board of management - 20 per cent and rest of the executive leadership team - 10 percent. Jaguar Land Rover maintains that it will be monitoring the situation continuously and will adhere to Government guidelines during this period of crisis.
The automobile major had stopped production at the Halewood, Liverpool facility on March 20, 2020. This was then followed by halting production at the Solihul plant on March 23 and Castle Bromwich on March 24. Thus, there is a temporary suspension on all the facilities outside China. Jaguar Land Rover retail sales in Fiscal 2019/20 were 508,659 vehicles, down 12.1 per cent on Fiscal 2018/19, which is a result of the coronavirus pandemic significantly impacting sales in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, stated the company in an official release. The company's total retail sales for the quarter ending March 31, 2020 were 109,869 vehicles, down 30.9% compared to the same period last year.
In light of the Coronavirus impact, Jaguar Land Rover is being extremely careful with costs, investments and also the working capital. The company will be announcing its audited results for the financial year that ended on March 2020 at a later date. However, it did confirm ending the FY with £3.6 billion of cash and short-term investments (unaudited) and an undrawn revolving credit facility of £1.9 billion.
Further, employees at Jaguar Land Rover Solihull made a contribution of more than £17,000 in charitable donations to support some of the West Midlands' most vulnerable people during the coronavirus crisis. Two donations of £5,000 each will be given to Renewal CC, a Solihull charity which offers a referral-based food bank service, and Age UK Solihull, which will be delivering food parcels to around 10,000 of Solihull's most isolated and vulnerable elderly residents. The employees at the Solihull-based manufacturing facility have also donated more than £7,000 to Childline Birmingham, a service which provides free counselling to young people in the Midlands.
