Jaguar Land Rover cutting up to 500 UK jobs as Trump’s trade tariffs bite

Jaguar Land Rover is cutting up to 500 management jobs in the United Kingdom amid pressure on sales due to trade tariff woes.

The Tata-owned luxury car firm said about 1.5 per cent of its UK workforce would be affected by the job cuts.

The workers are going as part of a voluntary redundancy programme for managers in the UK.

“As part of normal business practice, we regularly offer eligible employees the opportunity to leave JLR through limited voluntary redundancy programmes,” a spokesperson for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said.

JLR revealed last week that retail sales plunged 15.1 per cent in the three months to June.

That came a temporary pause in exports to the US and the planned wind-down of older Jaguar models.

The company said the significant fall in sales was partly driven by the pause in shipments to the US in April after President Donald Trump’s administration introduced new tariff plans.

In April, the US government said it would launch an additional 25 per cent tariff on car imports into the US, in an effort to encourage more car production within the country.

A think tank warned at the time that could put 25,000 UK automotive jobs at risk.

However, the US and UK have since agreed a deal which would see a lower 10 per cent tariff applied to the first 100,000 UK-manufactured cars imported into the US each year.

UK cars imported to the US beyond this threshold will however face a 27.5 per cent tariff.

JLR halted new shipments to the US in April but restarted exports in early May amid hopes that a trade deal for the sector would be struck.

The car firm saw wholesale sales in North America drop by 12.2 per cent year-on-year after the pause.

But wholesale sales in the UK were also heavily down – tumbling 25.5 per cent in the second quarter – after the planned wind-down of older Jaguar models.

Jaguar stopped selling new cars in the UK in late 2024 as it shifts its production to new electric models, which are set to go on sale in 2026.