Nissan Motor to slash hundreds of jobs at UK plant

Nissan Motor is going to slash hundreds of jobs at its Sunderland plant, that is also Britain’s biggest automotive factory. The automaker is tackling the decreasing demand for diesel models throughout Europe, a source informed Reuters on Friday.

Nissan constructs its Qashqai and Juke models at the northeastern English site and the sales in Britain, Europe’s second-largest auto market, have dropped 35 percent so far this year, worse than total demand in the sector, that dropped 12 percent.

Jaguar Land Rover is slashing about 1,000 jobs and output at two of its factories after a drop in sales which the industry has partially blamed on confusion over government diesel policy, with a tax hike having come into force this recently.

Nissan stated it is talking about the operational changes with its workers.

“We will be managing a planned short-term reduction in powertrain supply and plant volumes,” the firm stated.

Demand for diesel dropped by a third in the first three months of 2018 in Britain hit by continued consumer concern about planned tax increases and proposed bans and restrictions in some cities worldwide.

Nissan, which in 2016 stated that it would build new models in Britain, providing an increase to Prime Minister Theresa May, stated on Friday its production changes were not associated to Britain’s departure from the European Union.

“This is not related to Brexit. In time we expect volumes to boost as we prepare to launch the next generation Juke, Qashqai and X-Trail.”