Toyota has announced plans to cut 750 employees at its Burnaston plant.
The firm, which currently employs 3,800 people at the site, say it will try and fill the reduction quota with voluntary redundancies.
Burnaston has been operating short production hours – closing the lines every other Friday – for much of last year. Staff either worked less hours and took a pay cut or increased their efforts on continuous improvement exercises during these times.
The plant currently utilises two lines – operating two day shifts and one night shift – and makes the Auris and Avensis models. It now plans to close one of those lines from August in what it is calling an efficiency measure. Toyota says production volumes will not go down during this period and only that it will lose its excess capacity. The measures, it says, are part of an attempt to make the business more sustainable long term.
Last year the Japanese company announced intentions intending to begin building a hybrid version of its Auris model at the plant from the back end of the year. It is to be the first hybrid to be mass produced in Europe. Whether or not those plans will be affected by this decision are as yet unclear.
