BOOMING carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), which employs 4,500 people in Merseyside, is to create another 800 jobs in the West Midlands.
A Sunday newspaper report claims the extra jobs at JLR’s Solihull plant, come off the back of soaring sales in China, the US and Russia.
In the last few days the company, owned by Indian industrial giant Tata, reported a surge in sales for the Range Rover Evoque, which is produced at Halewood in Merseyside.
Sales across both its Jaguar and Land Rover brands surged 19.17% to 68,586 vehicles in 2012.
Land Rover sold 54,480 vehicles in its UK market, up almost 25% on the previous year and taking a 27% share of its market segment.
The success was driven by the first full year of sales for the Range Rover Evoque, which sold 18,119 vehicles in the UK, making it Land Rover’s biggest-selling product in this market.
The Evoque, which featured “Posh Spice” Victoria Beckham as a “creative design executive”, made its debut at Range Rover’s 40th birthday in the grounds of Princess Diana’s former home of Kensington Palace in July 2010.
The Solihull plant already employs 6,000 people producing the Range Rover Discovery and Defender models.
