Over 2,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover are at risk, equating to about 40% of DHL Supply Chain staff in manufacturing plants.
The staff most at risk are fulltime and agency employees currently at major factories including Castle Bromwich, Solihull, Ellesmere Port, and Halewood.
“In light of highly challenging trading conditions in the global automotive sector and the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our linefeed and freight operations supporting the Jaguar Land Rover contract,” said DHL.
“We are now in consultation with our employees and their representatives and will make every effort to redeploy as many colleagues as possible to our other operations nationwide.”
The trade union Unite has called upon the government to protect staff in the car manufacturing sector, who are particularly at risk within the Coronavirus pandemic.
The union said it hopes to minimise the job cuts.
“This is a massive, bitter blow for a dedicated workforce – and on the eve of the chancellor’s speech [on more emergency measures to reduce the economic impact of the pandemic] underscores the urgency of need for jobs-saving action from the government,” said Matt Draper, Unite’s national officer for logistics.
“Again, while governments in Spain, France and Germany are acting swiftly to secure a future for their car manufacturers, we see no such ambition from the UK government and as a result jobs are going,” he added.
Car manufacturers across the country have been hit in the pandemic. Last week, the SMMT said that one in six UK automotive jobs could be at risk if the government didn’t act now. Over 6,000 jobs were lost in the sector in June alone.
