Ford's Land Rover arm plans 1,000 job cuts in 2003
FRANKFURT, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The Land Rover unit of Ford Motor Co said
on Friday it planned to cut about 1,000 jobs at its U.K. Solihull
manufacturing plant next year as it seeks further cost savings.
The UK-based maker of offroad vehicles plans to avoid forced redundancies
and will rely on natural wastage to reduce its workforce by about 12
percent at the plant near Birmingham in central Britain over the course
of 2003, a company spokeswoman said.
"We are constantly reviewing our business and trying to improve our
efficiencies and this is part of that process," said the spokeswoman. The
move follows about 500 white collar job losses earlier this year at Land
Rover through voluntary redundancy and early retirement schemes.
The spokeswoman declined to give a profit forecast for the unit as Ford
does not break out earnings from individual brands.
The luxury brands of the world's second-biggest carmaker are under
pressure to raise their profits almost ten-fold and to jointly account
for a third of the parent company's earnings by the middle of the decade,
up from an estimated $250 million now, a target analysts view as
ambitious.
The brands, including Volvo, Jaguar and Aston Martin as well as Land
Rover, come under the umbrella of the Premier Automotive Group.
Ford, itself in the midst of a multi-year turnaround plan after a $5.45
billion loss in 2001, has said it expects UK-based Jaguar to post an
operating loss of about $500 million for 2002.
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