French car maker Peugeot has warned workers that jobs at a number of their divisions may be at risk, offering voluntary redundancies to workers for the second time in a six month period.
Workers at Peugeot’s Tile Hill and Stoke plants have been sent letters from company bosses detailing that the company is being revised due to their planned moves to Ryton. The letters have only reinforced workers’ fears of job losses at the Coventry parts division.
After mounting debts the French car manufacturer is looking to downsize with talks currently taking place regarding the Citroen UK branch moving from Slough to the Peugeot Headquarters in Humber Road, Coventry. The head office move will combine the two sites, as well as reducing head count within the companies. With the company’s debts increasing to £2.8 billion in recent months, jobs are evidently at risk.
The current state of the car maker mirrors financial troubles that they had back in 2006 at their Ryton division, where production stopped and around 2,000 jobs were lost. The 170-strong workforce of Tile Hill have braced themselves for what the letter describes as the recalculation of staffing levels during the company’s participation in a ‘major cost control programme’.
Workers at the parts division were offered voluntary redundancy back in October 2011 after the company started its reorganisation. Union workers are striking regarding their voluntary redundancy offer for 2012, which currently stands at 4%, after reports that redundancy claims will partly link to the individual’s performance. Additional redundancies have been confirmed, however, division workers are not sure when.