JCB set to axe up to 400 jobs as world markets decline

JCB is set to axe up to 400 of its UK jobs due to the increasingly tough global construction equipment market. The company, one of the world’s biggest construction OEMs, says it has briefed employees about the staff positions at risk in the UK, although it will attempt to minimise the impact by considering voluntary redundancies. JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald said: “Market conditions in the construction equipment sector have been difficult for some time, but they have worsened quite rapidly in recent week
September 25, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

633 JCB is set to axe up to 400 of its UK jobs due to the increasingly tough global construction equipment market.

The company, one of the world’s biggest construction OEMs, says it has briefed employees about the staff positions at risk in the UK, although it will attempt to minimise the impact by considering voluntary redundancies.

JCB CEO Graeme Macdonald said: “Market conditions in the construction equipment sector have been difficult for some time, but they have worsened quite rapidly in recent weeks. The situation is not about to improve, certainly not in the short term, so we now need to take difficult but decisive actions to align overheads to lower sales forecasts. Regrettably, this will result in up to 400 staff positions becoming redundant across our UK businesses.”

In the first six months of the year, the market in Russia has dropped by 70%, Brazil by 36% and China by 47%. Parts of Europe are also struggling, with France down by 26%. Even the strong growth in the UK and North America has softened due to a fall in market confidence over the summer, which has been prompted to an extent by low oil and commodity prices in countries which depend on these resources to drive economic growth.

The job losses news from JCB, whose world headquarters is in county Staffordshire, England, comes in the same week as US sector giant 395 Caterpillar announced 10,000 job losses by 2018 as part of a significant restructure and cost cutting programme. Cat says ever tougher mining and energy markets trading has been the catalyst for the moves, which, when fully implemented, will offer US$1.5 billion operational savings annually.   

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