JLR Is Offering Buyouts To Workers As Its Sales Drop

Just two months ago, JLR announced its highest profit in a decade for fiscal year 2025, along with its tenth consecutive quarterly profit. Now the automaker is making buyout offers to around 1.5% of its workforce. The British car company is looking to shed management as it reported a 10.7% drop in sales last quarter.

The 10.7% drop in sales is at least partly blamed on 25% tariffs on vehicles imported into the US, one of Jaguar and Land Rover’s largest markets. But the company has also said it was not unexpected.

No Jaguars And Import Tariffs Hurt Sales

At least some of the credit for declining sales is the lack of any Jaguar models. The company is on a sort of break as JLR gets ready to re-launch it in a controversial move to make the brand more premium and EV-only. That re-launch is expected next year, and so, in the meantime, dealers are selling off a quickly depleting existing stock.

Earlier this month, JLR said that its sales volumes fell “in line with the company’s expectations.” It said that this “largely reflects the planned wind down of legacy Jaguar models ahead of the launch of new Jaguar.”

JLR, the parent of Jaguar and Land Rover, including Range Rover, told Autocar that it expected no more than 500 staff to take the buyout offer, called voluntary redundancy in the UK. All will be managerial jobs, and all will be in the UK, the report said, though it’s not clear what sites or departments could be most affected. The automaker has factories in Solihul and Halewood, builds engines in Wolverhampton, and has several other UK sites, including its headquarters in Gaydon.

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In a statement to Autocar, JLR said: “JLR regularly offers eligible employees voluntary redundancy [VR] programs. Through this limited UK VR program for managers, JLR is aligning its leadership workforce for the business’s current and future needs.”

Automaker “Grateful” For New Trade Agreement, Looking Forward To New Jaguar

The automaker also said it was “grateful” to the UK government for hammering out a new trade deal with the US. That new agreement is said to include a 10% tariff on imported vehicles, on the first 100,000, with 25% possible above that. The UK rarely exports a higher volume than that to the US. However, 10% is still four times more than pre-Trump tariffs on imports from the UK.

JLR vehicles from other countries, including the Slovakian-built Discovery and Defender, will still be subject to the higher 25% rate. The automaker also had to pause shipments of vehicles to the US during April until the situation became more stable.

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As part of its statement, JLR said that the new US-UK trade agreement gives it “the confidence to invest £3.5bn per annum to realize our strategy.” That strategy will hopefully see Jaguar’s revenues recover thanks to the new luxury models, though it does not expect to sell the same volumes of the more expensive new vehicles.

Source: Autocar