Hundreds of temporary jobs to go at Nissan’s Sunderland plant
> Its only a couple of months since we were being told that the automotive sector, based mainly around Nissan and its suppliers, were the way forward for employment locally.
I commented at the time that this “eggs-all-in-one-basket” approach was previously applied to the advent of call centres, and that didn’t work out too well.
This doesn’t herald the collapse of the automotive industry locally, but it does mean more people back on the dole, and probably some knock-on effects on Nissan’s suppliers.
Nissan is to cut hundreds of temporary jobs at its Sunderland factory.
The car giant announced today it is to cease 24-hour production on line two at the factory, which builds the Juke and Note.
The move will see the workforce reduced by 365, though the firm expects the number of workers affected to be less, due to staff turnover. The cuts will be limited to staff on temporary contracts.
Nissan has recruited 2,000 people to the Sunderland workforce in the past two years to support a £1billion investment programme.
After making more than 500,000 cars in each of the last two years, 24-hour working on both lines was introduced in January.
But the firm announced to staff this morning that demand no longer justifies running three shifts beyond the summer and Line 2 will return to two-shift operations from mid-June.
“At the end of this period we expect headcount at Sunderland to be around 6,700, supporting two-shift operations on Line 2 with 24-hour operations continuing across the rest of the site,” said a spokesman.
Source – Sunderland Echo 02 May 2014
UNEMPLOYED IN TYNE & WEAR 
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