UP to 800 UK Toyota jobs are at risk following the firm’s announcement it would make its first ever loss.
The cuts, reported in national newspapers today, come after Toyota said it expected to post a £1.1bn (150bn yen) loss in yearly operating profits.
The possible job losses – some 15 per cent of Toyota’s UK workforce – would add to the 40,000 positions expected to go in the UK car industry in the coming three years as makers battle falling sales.
Toyota has a manufacturing plant in Derbyshire and an engine production facility in North Wales. Production at these plants has already been cut.
The company says redundancies among its 4,600 UK employees at these plants cannot be ruled out.
And the car maker warned that it could take five years to get car sales back to pre credit crunch levels.
‘We will continue to make every possible effort to secure employment for our permanent employees,’ a spokesman for Toyota told the Daily Mail.
‘We need to be prudent because the market is quite volatile and unpredictable.’
