JLR sinks to £451m loss as 4,000 job cuts bill hits £530m

Jaguar Land Rover slid to a £451m loss in the three months to September after booking £530m in restructuring costs from the 4,000 job cuts it announced late in the quarter. Revenue still rose to £5.9bn over the period. Strip out the redundancy bill and the carmaker says it scraped an operating profit, but sagging sales in China and the Middle East did the damage.

Most of the axe will fall voluntarily. Around 3,000 of the cuts are already confirmed, and the bulk of those workers walk out at the end of November, JLR said.

Chief executive PB Balaji used the results to push Britain and Brussels to scrap plans for fresh post-Brexit trade barriers. The EU and UK are due to apply 'rules of origin' from 1 January, which would slap 10% tariffs on British and European electric cars that use batteries made in Asia, while the EU weighs 'made in Europe' rules that would shut UK-built cars out of subsidies.

Balaji said the 'onslaught of competition' from China made cooperation urgent. 'Now is the time for actually fostering this entire electrical ecosystem,' he said. 'We just need time to ensure all these plans start coming into fruition.'

JLR is owned by India's Tata conglomerate and once chased growth in China, only to write off billions of pounds of investment there in 2019 as Chinese rivals flooded the market. The company was also hit by a devastating hack last year. It is now angling for US growth, working on a deal that would see Stellantis — Chrysler's parent — build Land Rovers for the first time.

On the electric front, JLR has started building battery-powered Land Rovers, led by the flagship Range Rover rolling out of Solihull in the West Midlands. Electric versions of the cheaper, higher-volume Range Rover Sport, Defender and Defender Sport are next, alongside the luxury electric Jaguar Type 01, and Balaji confirmed a new Discovery is in development.