159 Jaguar Land Rover supply chain jobs to be axed

Employees who work for logistics specialists DHL Supply Chain at JLR sites, including its engine manufacturing centre at the i54, are expected to lose their jobs.

It comes in the week that the car giant announced a £3.6 billion annual loss.

The affected DHL salaried staff were told on Monday that 135 jobs in line-feed operation and 24 in UK freight have to go from around 800 as part of the contract renewal with JLR.

Already this year JLR has made 4,500 redundancies across its sites as part of efforts to find £2.5bn savings.

JLR employs nearly 39,000 at Wolverhampton, Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Halewood, at Merseyside.

DHL Supply Chain has reviewed UK linefeed and freight operations services provided to JLR to match the requirements of the new contract.

It will now enter into consultation with the company and workforce representatives.

It said every effort would be made to redeploy staff to other DHL operations.

It comes as in separate news it emerged Jaguar Land Rover’s chief financial officer is leaving – the day after the luxury car maker revealed a £3.6 billion annual loss.

It said that Ken Gregor has decided to step down on June1 after 22 years with the business and serving as CFO for 11 years since June 2008, when Tata acquired Jaguar Land Rover from Ford.

Adrian Mardell, chief transformation officer, has been appointed to succeed Mr Gregor, who joined Jaguar in 1997.

JLR chief executive Dr Ralf Speth said: "Throughout his career at the company, and especially as CFO, he has made an enormous contribution to the growth and success of our business.

"On behalf of the board of management and all colleagues, I would like to thank Ken for this significant personal contribution throughout this period and we wish him every success in his future career."

Mr Gregor, who will remain with the company until the end of August to support the handover of responsibilities to Mr Mardell, said: "It has been a privilege to work with a great team during a period of unprecedented profitable growth at Jaguar Land Rover.

"I am glad to be handing over my responsibilities as CFO with the company having a solid balance sheet and sustainable growth plan."

Mr Mardell has been leading the Project Charge transformation programme.

Before this, he held a variety of roles in the JLR finance team, including the position of deputy chief financial officer from 2008 to 2016.

In addition to his new responsibilities, he will continue to oversee his current role for an interim period.