7:26 am, January 20, 2023
Jaguar Land Rover has reported success in hiring sacked Facebook and Twitter staff as Aston Martin joins the race for more staff.
The British manufacturers are both on the look-out for new team members with JLR revealing its approach of targeting tech teams made redundant by the social media giants was a success.
In November, Car Dealer reported on JLR’s appeal to thousands of recently redundant staff from Facebook-owner Meta and Elon Musk’s Twitter to come and work in its burgeoning digital departments.
JLR had 800 roles available and now the firm has revealed it has already filled 500 of them.
In an update, Jaguar Land Rover told local papers that the workers had been taken on to support its ‘digital transformation’ and it was still looking for more.
Roles are based in the manufacturer’s tech hubs in the UK, Ireland, USA, India, China and Hungary – and come with hybrid working patterns, said the firm.
‘While a website might require a couple of million lines of code, developing an autonomous vehicle needs approximately one billion lines of code – an incredible challenge for any data driven engineer to tackle,’ said Anthony Battle, chief information officer at JLR.
‘Our digital transformation is happening at pace and we need experienced digital and engineering specialists with skills in areas such as AI, autonomous driving, machine learning and data science, right now.
‘We are offering people the chance to work on our next generation of modern luxury electric cars – some of the most sophisticated vehicles ever.’
Earlier this week, we reported on Jaguar’s plans for its next generation of cars, due in 2025, to take on Bentley.
Insiders at the firm told The Sunday Times that the company is keen to move the brand’s new electric cars models up the price brackets.
The news of JLR’s successful recruitment drive comes as Aston Martin begins a similar hunt for 100 staff to work on its next generation of sports cars.
The luxury car firm is due to begin production of the new cars this year and is looking for the staff to join its Gaydon headquarters.
Aston Martin is also offering agency workers who joined to help ramp-up production of the DBX707 in St Athan full time jobs.
Simon Smith, chief people officer of Aston Martin Lagonda, said: ‘As Aston Martin prepares to ramp-up production and launch the first of our next generation of sports cars, we are delighted to have the opportunity to increase our team at Gaydon as well as offer high-quality permanent employment opportunities for our valued agency colleagues.
‘Nobody builds an Aston Martin on their own and this is a fantastic opportunity for experienced automotive technicians to join our world-class team and play their part in this exciting next chapter in Aston Martin’s rich history.’
In November, Aston Martin was forced to to change its forecasts for 2022 as the firm continued to be dogged by supply chain issues.
The British marque said it would deliver fewer cars than expected as it cut its guidance for deliveries and profit margins.
Executive chairman, Lawrence Stroll, said issues including the semiconductor crisis had hit the planned delivery of more than 400 vehicles over the latest quarter.
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