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| 850 Jobs are axes by FORD UK 2009-02-17
Between 400 and 500 jobs will go at the company's Transit van plant in Southampton, while another 350 jobs will be lost through a restructuring of salaried staff.
Ford, which employs approximately 13,000 people in the UK, said the job cuts were a response to the "serious economic situation affecting the automotive industry". It added that non-production days, an option pursued by other UK manufacturers such as Honda, were "not affordable in the absence of a significant improvement in customer demand".
The company also announced it wants to "re-evaluate" this year's pay increase of 5.25pc because trading conditions have worsened "significantly" since it was drawn up last October.
Such a step would "not normally be contemplated" but these are "unprecedented circumstances", it added.
| Cars 2009-03-18
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| China January car sales edge up on month - group 2009-02-05
SHANGHAI, Feb 6 (Reuters) - China's passenger car sales fell 0.2 percent from a year earlier in January to 647,594 vehicles, the China Passenger Car Association said on Friday.
But sales edged up from December, when they totalled 644,028 vehicles, according to data previously provided by the association.
The association's data may differ from official figures expected to come out early next week.
The January year-on-year comparison was distorted by the fact that a week-long Lunar New Year holiday occurred in January this year but in February 2008. (Reporting by Fang Yan; Editing by Andrew Torchia)
| More auto industry gloom as BMW profits fall and Jaguar extends redundancy plan 2009-02-20
There was more doom and gloom from the automotive industry yesterday as BMW admitted a sharp fall in profits and Jaguar announced plans to extend its voluntary redundancy scheme to up to 600 staff.
The German luxury car manufacturer blamed weakening global economies and falling consumer spending for third-quarter profits down by 63 per cent to ?298m (?241m) on sales down by 4.2 per cent. The group is to cut production by some 40,000 units this year and will no longer beat last year's sales volumes.
"The performance of the BMW Group in the third quarter 2008 was perceptibly influenced by the economic downswing in the wake of the financial crisis," the company said. "Due to the prevailing adverse climate and the uncertainties caused by the financial crisis, the profitability targets set for 2008 are no longer achievable."
The company is predicting worse to come in 2009 in its three biggest traditional markets of Japan, the US and western Europe. The US will see double-digit contractions, Europe will continue to be badly affected by concerns over CO2 emissions on top of consumer spending issues, and only Japan can hope for stagnation. "There are currently no indications that any of these individual markets will recover; at best, some of them might stagnate at a low level," BMW said.
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