Jaguar Land Rover furloughs half of its UK workforce due to coronavirus

Jaguar Land Rover have furloughed half of its entire UK workforce – up to 20,000 workers – due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The automotive manufacturer said they ‘furloughed all roles that are not critical during this temporary period of disruption.’

Its board and leadership team will also deferring salary payments from May for three months, the firm said.

Production ceased at the Castle Bromwich site on March 24, its Solihull plant on March 23 and Halewood, Liverpool, on March 20.

JLR also confirmed that ‘a controlled stop would continue for a few more weeks.’

‘At Jaguar Land Rover, the health of our employees is our primary concern,’ a spokeswoman told BirminghamLive.

‘We continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and follow the guidance of all relevant authorities.’

Some employees accused the firm of ‘making staff pay back time due to coronavirus in compulsory overtime’ despite 80 percent of monthly wages being covered by the Government.

‘JLR are making employees pay back the time off we have had due to coronavirus in compulsory overtime even though they are getting 80 percent of the wages covered by the Government scheme,’ said an employee, who asked not to be named. 

‘We employees don’t think it is fair as somewhere down the line we will have to pay it back in tax anyway, so why should we be made to do compulsory overtime as well?

‘On our wage slips it is already showing 130+ hours we owe them back they have booked it as an agreement called corridor hours, which means compulsory overtime.’

But a JLR spokeswoman said: ‘The use of corridor hours arrangement has allowed us to act quickly to manage and administrate our application of the job retention scheme.

‘For those on furlough, we are topping up wages to protect 100% base salary during April.

‘We are in discussions with the trade unions and our employees are regularly updated by Jaguar Land Rover and the trade unions about the current situation.’

JLR added: ‘Our manufacturing sites are on a controlled stop and continue to adhere to government advice.

‘Against the backdrop of rapidly changing circumstances, we have decided to extend the controlled stop at our plants for a few more weeks.

‘We are working towards an orderly return to production as soon as conditions permit. We are operating in line with advice from the NHS & Public Health England to minimise the spread of the coronavirus, whilst implementing plans to safeguard our business continuity.’

It comes after 100 workers at a JLR factory in the UK have had their jobs saved. The staff members, who work for the Midlands car giant, work at the Halewood plant, in Mersyeside.

JLR staff have given more than £17,000 to local charities.

Two donations of £5,000 each will go to Renewal CC, a Solihull charity which offers a referral-based food bank service, and Age UK Solihull, which will be delivering food parcels to around 10,000 of Solihull’s most isolated and vulnerable elderly resident. 

Desperate employers make 67,000 furlough claims in first 30 minutes on new website as Government claims system will be able to take the strain

• Government’s coronavirus job retention scheme website is launching today
• HMRC chief executive is ‘very confident’ the system running the site will work
• Has capacity for 450,000 claims an hour and received 67,000 by 8.30am
• 11.7m people could be furloughed or jobless in the three months to end of June

The Government’s coronavirus furlough scheme website opened for applications today – receiving 67,000 claims in the first 30 minutes.

Employers are expected to claim for millions of workers put on temporary leave because of the crisis, and the furlough system has been given a capacity of up to 450,000 employee claims per hour.

 Under HMRC’s job retention scheme, the government will cover 80 per cent of a worker’s wages, up to £2,500 a month, if they are not working but are kept on the payroll. 

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has also announced a £1.25 billion package to aid companies in the innovation sector.

The lockdown is pressuring a number of British businesses, with one report warning that as many as 11.7million people could be furloughed or left jobless in the three months to the end of June.       

But Jim Harra, chief executive of HM Revenue & Customs, said his organisation is ‘very confident’ the system running the coronavirus job retention scheme would work after it had been ‘tested at volume’.

He revealed the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme system had been tested at ‘up to 450,000 claims per hour’, and insisted that if employers are patient while using the Government website in the next few days, they will be paid by April 30. 

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said: ‘Of course, there is a limit to the capacity of the system, so if every employer tries to use it at 8 o’clock this morning some will be asked to queue or come back later, that doesn’t mean the system has crashed, it simply means that it’s full. 

‘But employers can claim any time over the few days, between now and Wednesday, and we will have the money in their bank account by April 30.’  

He added: ‘I’m confident that if employers are patient, use the system, it’s available 24/7, and as I say, if your payroll date is April 30 you can claim any time today, tomorrow or Wednesday and we will get that money into your account.’

Up to half of Britain’s companies are expecting to furlough most of their staff at a cost of up to £40billion to the Treasury.

The Government initially thought around 10% of companies would take up the job retention scheme, at a cost of around £10billion, but around a fifth of smaller firms plan to furlough all of their staff and 50% are taking up the scheme for some of their employees, the BBC reports.  

It comes as a report by an independent think tank suggested as many as 11.7 million people could be furloughed or unemployed over the next three months.

Employees in the lowest-paying hospitality and retail sectors are most likely, 50% more than average, to be affected, a paper by the Resolution Foundation has found.

Analysing the differing impact of the Covid-19 crisis within the labour market, the report states: ‘As many as 3.1 million employees (46%) in these sectors could be furloughed, with an additional 800,000 workers in this part of the economy becoming unemployed.

‘In contrast, only 4% of those working in the highest-paid sector, finance and insurance, are likely to be furloughed.’

It comes as the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (JRS) launched on Monday.

The report entitled Launching An Economic Lifeboat: The Impact Of The Job Retention Scheme warned of the possible extent of joblessness, but pointed to the mitigation impact of the scheme.

It said: ‘Although we estimate that non-working could increase by as much as 11.7 million in Q2 2020, this is heavily tilted towards use of the JRS (8.3 million employees).

‘Unemployment could still rise sharply to 3.4 million (10%) in Q2 2020, but because of the JRS it will not reach catastrophic levels.’

It added that the Job Retention Scheme ‘may well have the largest fiscal cost of any intervention’ adding the Government needs to provide ‘regular updates on scheme take-up’ and there was a ‘strong case for extending the scheme to cover shorter hours working’.

Daniel Tomlinson, economist at the Resolution Foundation said: ‘The Government’s welcome Job Retention Scheme is what stands between Britain experiencing high unemployment over the coming months, and catastrophic depression-era levels of long-term joblessness.

‘It is proving particularly essential in big, low-paying sectors like hospitality and retail, where around half the workforce are no longer working.

‘The priority from today is for the Government to process claims as quickly as possible so that the millions of firms relying on it get the financial support they need.

‘Given the scheme’s central role in both providing a safety net and restarting economic activity, the Government should provide regular updates on take-up and payments, and extend it to allow shorter-hours working.’