Toyota May Cut 750 UK Jobs

Toyota’s current situation is a perfect example that it is much easier to get to the top than to maintain that position. After managing to surpass GM as the world’s biggest automotive producer, the Japanese manufacturer is facing Gulliver-sized problems as its nearly global uncontrolled acceleration recall problem is getting worse.

In 2009 Toyota has recalled 4.2 million cars claiming that the floor mats need to be replaced in order to solve the aforementioned problem. As if this wasn’t enough, an additional 1.1 million cars have been recalled earlier this month for the exact same reason. And the 2010 statistics keep getting worse, as 2.3 million cars will have to follow the same path, albeit for apparently different reasons: a stuck accelerator pedal.

Considering this, Toyota has set an ambitious sales target for the current year, as the carmaker wants to see a 6 percent increase over 2009’s sales figures. But maybe the carmaker wants to achieve financial performance at multiple levels, including cost efficiency through cutting jobs.

Toyota has recently announced that its UK Derbyshire factory will have a 750 job “surplus” starting from August and that company executives are currently analyzing the situation.

The announcement was made during one of the company’s scheduled salary negotiation meeting. This is a consequence of the fact that Toyota intends to merge the Avensis and Auris production lines into one entity. The manufacturer claims that the change is related to production efficiency and not to production volumes.

In 2009, the plant's staff worked under a cost-cutting scheme, receiving less money for a compulsory reduced work time.

The situation remains unclear until the next salary meeting.