11:35 am, February 26, 2025
Aston Martin has axed a staggering 170 jobs as the it looks to make drastic cuts in response to tumbling losses.
The manufacturer said the measures will see 5% of its workforce cut from the wage bill as part of a major exercise to slash costs.
The announcement comes after losses widen by a fifth last year, amid dwindling sales compared to 2023.
Bosses hope that the cuts, which will hit all of the company’s departments, will help to bring about a return to profitability in 2025.
The majority of the job losses, which includes roles in manufacturing, office jobs and management, will come in the UK, with just 20 oversees workers set to depart.
It is understood that there will be reductions both at the firm’s Gaydon HQ and its factory in St Athan, South Wales.
Aston Martin said today (Feb 26) that the aim is to make sure the company is ‘appropriately resourced for its future plans’, calling the cuts a ‘difficult but necessary action’.
The British marque is targeting yearly savings of £25m, and expects to hit about half of that total this year.
Meanwhile, the outfit has also delayed the rollout of its first fully electric vehicle until near the end of the decade.
The model was originally set to be launched in 2026, and the delay is part of what the company is calling a ‘phased approach’ to electrification.
Since it was bought by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll in 2020, Aston Martin has pushed on with a swathe of new model launches in a bid to turn its ailing fortunes around.
It recently appointed Adrian Hallmark as its new chief executive, with him taking on the role in September, when sales were ramping up thanks to the new Vantage and DBX707. The company also launched its flagship Vanquish model last year.
Aston Martin said the launches helped boost sales later in the year as it started delivering more of the new models to customers, with wholesale volumes picking up 10% year on year in the second half compared with 2023.
However, the company’s wholesale volumes for the whole year were still down 9% at 6,030 cars, pushing its pre-tax losses to gape by a further 21% to £289m.
It also saw its debt pile balloon by 43% to £1.16bn during the year, while shares were down about 33% over the last year.
Hallmark said 2024 was ‘a period of intense product launches, coupled with industry-wide and company challenges’.
He now says that he wants Aston Martin to ‘transition from a high-potential business to a high-performing one, better equipped to navigate future opportunities and uncertainties’.
