Nissan is to lay off hundreds of workers at its production plant in Sunderland after a drop in diesel sales.
Bosses at the company said operational changes meant it had to reduce the supply of diesel powertrains in the short-term.
Around 7,000 workers are employed at Nissan’s Sunderland plant, which produces the Qashqai, Juke and X-Trail SUVs – all models where diesel represents a significant portion of the sales mix.
Sales of diesel cars are down by around a third in 2018 and the announcement comes exactly a week after Jaguar Land Rover announced 1,000 job cuts for virtually identical reasons.
Speaking to the Financial Times, a Nissan spokesperson stressed that the job losses were not connected to Britain’s impending departure from the European Union, and said there was every chance its Sunderland workforce would increase again.
“This is not related to Brexit,” they explained. “In time, we expect volumes to increase as we prepare to launch the next-generation Juke, Qashqai and X-Trail.
“As we make the operational changes required to support [our transition to a new range of powertrains], we will be managing a planned short-term reduction in powertrain supply and plant volumes at NMUK [Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK] in line with our 2018 business plan.”