JLR Recovery Impacted By Low Demand For Jaguar Sedan Models

According to a report by The Guardian that has seen confidential production plans, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has a large number of employees still on leave under the UK government’s job retention plan.

JLR had to suspend production back in March because of the COVID-19 lockout, with many of its workers furloughed. Now, even though most of the carmaker’s plants are operating at close to pre-pandemic levels, trouble may be brewing elsewhere.

Namely, the Castle plant, where the XE, XF and F-Type are built. This location is reportedly still running at a reduced capacity, and considerably so.

Apparently, JLR is targeting a production rate of 11,000 units for the financial year that ends in March of 2021, split between some 4,000 F-Types, 3,500 XEs and 3,500 XFs – last year the facility produced 35,000 cars. In case of the XE, while the updated model should boost sales by an unknown amount, fewer than 300 units will be produced each month for the rest of this year, allegedly.

The report also claims a massive difference between the workers being furloughed by JLR, and other UK carmakers, who now have fewer than 80 employees on the previously-mentioned job scheme, while JLR has 3,000.

As the furlough scheme closes, the British carmaker plans on executing between 100 and 200 job cuts through a voluntary redundancy program.

On a related note, Jaguar has already cut prices for the XE and XF in the UK, the former now cheaper by 16% and the latter by 18%. Jaguar also reduced available XF configurations from 64 to 28, and from 24 to just 13 in case of the XE. Furthermore, it recently axed the XE sedan and XF Sportbrake from it’s North American lineup.