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Tue March 19 2024

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JCB plans redundancies

22 Oct 14 JCB is to shed more than 2% of its UK workforce, partly as a result of trade sanctions with Russia.

JCB chief executive Graham Macdonald
JCB chief executive Graham Macdonald

JCB has said that it needs to make 150 redundancies from its 6,500 UK workforce. Most are expected to come from office positions in Staffordshire. A 45-day consultation has now begun.

JCB owner Lord Bamford warned in August that EU sanctions against Russia, imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, would cost jobs at his company.

“We ship both machines and spare parts to Russia and are the market leader for construction equipment in the country. If sanctions restrict sales of machines and spare parts, there will be obviously be a major impact on JCB, which could put hundreds of British jobs at risk,” he said at the time. “It seems absurd that a leading UK exporter, successfully selling machinery to construction companies and farmers in Russia, could be affected so dramatically by EU sanctions coming out of Brussels.”

However, even without sanctions, sales to Russia had already slowed, as they have in certain other international markets. JCB chief executive Graham Macdonald told his local paper, the Burton Mail, that a sudden slowdown in the global market in the last few weeks has taken the industry by surprise.

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MPU
MPU

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