Tata Motor's JLR to create 1,300 jobs in UK

Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), UK's premium luxury car manufacturer today announced that it plans to create 1,300 new jobs at its UK plant as it plans to add new Jaguar models to its product portfolio.

The new jobs will be at the company's Solihull plant where it will built its new Jaguar crossover sports utility vehicle (SUV). The SUV is set to go on sale in 2016.

Jaguar Land Rover CEO Ralf Speth said "Today's announcements once again demonstrate our commitment to the UK and the advancement of a high-tech, high skilled, manufacturing-led economy."

According to reports, the firm already employs more than 30,000 people in the UK, and the new jobs are an addition to the 1,700 announced last year at the same plant to build Jaguar"s newest sports saloon, the XE.

To support the introduction of its new aluminium and lightweight technologies Jaguar Land Rover has already invested "1.5 billion. The new facilities represent the largest single investment in the Solihull plant in its 70 year history and created an impressive "factory within a factory", said the company.

The company also said that its performance for the full year of 2014 has been robust. JLR reported that it retailed 462,678 vehicles, up nine% versus prior year. This is the company"s fifth successive year of growth in sales.

Andy Goss, Jaguar Land Rover Group Sales Operations Director said: "With 12 significant new product actions planned for 2015 and the introduction of the new Jaguar XE and the Land Rover Discovery Sport, we anticipate retailing over half a million vehicles for the first time in the company's history."

Jaguar Land Rover"s global performance for the full year 2014 shows sales up across all key regions: 122,010 in the China Region, up 28%; 96,505 for Overseas, up 1%; 86,310 in Europe, up 3%; 82,872 in the UK, up 7% and 74,981 in North America, up 2%.

Land Rover had its best ever year with sales reaching 381,108, up 9% year-on-year, said the company. JLR sold more Range Rovers, Range Rover Sports and Range Rover Evoques in 2014 than ever before, on the back of continued strong customer demand.

"A 2014/15 fiscal year investment of "3.75bn in product creation has seen the introduction of a host of new and exciting products and business expansion. The company"s headcount has increased to 32,000, 10,000 more than were employed just four years ago," said the company in its press statement.