More job cuts at Rover plant

More job cuts at Rover plant

ROVER, the loss-making British car maker, plans to cut 400 jobs at its Swindon plant. Unions at Swindon had been told the decision to shed jobs at the tooling and pressing plant was part of the process of integrating Rover into BMW, which owns Rover.

The Swindon plant employs 3,000 people. The job cuts are part of a shift in production to Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Hundreds of more jobs at the plant could be lost over the next few years as part of the same process. BMW is under pressure to turn the Rover group around. Last week it said that losses this year at Rover are expected to be less than the 1998 loss of 1.87bn marks ($1.01bn). BMW is currently considering an aid package offered by the British Government to help modernise Rover's plant at Longbridge in order to safeguard thousands of jobs.