JCB employees unable to work have been on full pay until now but will now move to 80% pay, in accordance with the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme.
Senior directors will not be taking a salary from the company until further notice.
The firm’s nine manufacturing plants in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Wrexham closed on 18th March 18th for an initial two weeks as disruption resulting from the worldwide coronavirus pandemic hit demand.
At that stage, only shop floor employees were affected by the move and were paid in full during this period; office staff continued to work a 39-hour week from home.
The extension of the shutdown means that the vast majority of JCB’s 6,500 workforce will now be asked to stop working until at least the end of April. During this period, all affected JCB employees will be paid 80% of their basic pay, the company said.
Chief executive Graeme Macdonald said: “These are certainly unprecedented times and none of us expected to find ourselves in this situation. In announcing that all those JCB colleagues asked not to work will receive 80% of their pay, we hope to remove any financial concerns that many people will undoubtedly have had.”
He also said that JCB intends to make an application to the government’s coronavirus job retention scheme to help offset the cost of supporting employees during the crisis. The scheme is designed to support employers in continuing to pay part of employees’ salaries, for employees who would otherwise have been laid off. The government scheme pays 80% of an employee’s salary up to a maximum of £2,500 per month. In devising its scheme, JCB has set no cap and will pay 80% of each affected employee’s pay.
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