Jaguar Land Rover: an endangered species

Compared to the likes of BMW (which sold more than 2.5 million cars last year), JLR is a minnow, said Steve Fowler in The Independent. The company sold just over 352,000 cars last year and employs 43,000 people worldwide and 34,000 in the UK. But the company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, is a “big fish in a small pond”, creating jobs for businesses in supply chains across Britain. And “the decline of one species can lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem.”

“Rotten 12 Months”

So the news that JLR is cutting 4,000 jobs is worrying, Nils Pratley said in The Guardian. The firm has endured a “rotten 12 months” due to Trump tariffs, Chinese luxury taxes, material price inflation and a catastrophic cyber attack. But it’s a decent business that makes reasonable cuts in the name of competitiveness and doesn’t face a “VW-like existential crisis.”