LONDON, Feb 18 — Jaguar Land Rover yesterday said that it planned to lay off around 2,000 staff in the next financial year.

The largest car manufacturer in Britain, owned by India’s Tata Motors, said in a statement: "We anticipate a net reduction of around 2,000 people from our global salaried workforce in the next financial year.”

Jaguar Land Rover has almost 40,000 employees worldwide, according to its 2019-20 annual report.

It had announced Monday that the Jaguar brand would produce only electric vehicles by 2025 and that Land Rover would have its first fully-electric vehicle in 2024.

The car maker said it would invest £2.5 billion (RM14 billion) annually under its "Reimagine” plan, which aims for its supply chain and operations to become carbon neutral by 2039.

It had said this plan would also involve substantially reducing its non-manufacturing operations.

The radical overhaul comes under new chief executive Thierry Bollore, who joined in September.

The statement released yesterday said that a "full review of the Jaguar Land Rover organisation is already underway”.

It said the organisation had already started to brief salaried staff on the job cuts, which do not affect manufacturing staff paid by the hour.

Jaguar Land Rover has plants in the West Midlands area of England as well as facilities in Slovakia, India, China and Brazil.

Its owner Tata Motors is part of the Indian conglomerate Tata Group. — AFP