Britain's motor industry suffered a day of mixed fortunes yesterday with news of fresh job losses balanced by a £115m investment on Merseyside.
Union leaders said Vauxhall was looking to cut some 430 jobs from its British workforce of about 7,500 as part of plans by its parent company, General Motors, to shed up to 12,000 jobs across its loss-making European operations.
Some 340 jobs are expected to go at the Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire and another 94 at the van manufacturing facility in Luton, according to the Transport & General Workers Union.
Dave Osborne, T&G national secretary for the car industry, said: "Obviously we are disappointed that there are a number of jobs that General Motors plan to cut in the UK, particularly given the levels of efficiency achieved in the last year." The union is already battling against more than 1,100 job losses at Jaguar's Coventry plant, announced last month.
Vauxhall, which lost more than £50m in 2002 and £115m last year, refused to say how many jobs would go. "We are not talking specific numbers. We are working with the unions and the workforce to improve the efficiency of the business," a spokesman said.
Workers at Bochum, one of the GM plants in Germany where the job losses are expected to hit hardest, have already taken strike action, raising concerns that the action could have a knock-on effect on production at other GM plants. Some workers returned to work yesterday, though a day of action is planned for today. Vauxhall workers are expected to show their support for a day of action with meetings of up to an hour planned for UK sites.
News of the Vauxhall job losses came after the announcement that Getrag Ford is to spend £115m on a new transmission facility at Halewood for Ford cars, backed by a government grant of £5m.
Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, said the government's support showed its commitment to high-value manufacturing. "The investment will help this facility to establish itself as a globally competitive site and safeguard over 730 jobs, helping increase and improve local skills."
Elsewhere, it was announced that Karl-Heinz Kalbfell, the chairman and chief executive of Rolls-Royce, has left the luxury carmaker to take a new job outside the parent company, BMW. He is the second head of Rolls-Royce to resign this year, following the departure in May of the previous chairman and chief executive, Tony Gott. BMW's finance director, Stefan Krause, will take over as the interim head of Rolls-Royce until a successor is appointed.
Mr Kalbfell is understood to have accepted a job with another carmaker, although Rolls-Royce declined to name his new employer. "It was very much his own choice. He has clearly been made a very attractive offer by someone else and has decided to take it," a spokesman said yesterday.
He added that the loss of two senior executives in such a short space of time was "an unhappy coincidence" but added that the business had "never been in better shape".
