Trouble at Mill

[Armco Bender]

Daily F1 reports: Jaguar to trim workforce

Jaguar-Racing is trimming its workforce to safeguard its position in an unstable climate caused by the tumultuous worldwide economy.

The team announced yesterday that it would be cutting between 40-60 jobs at its Milton-Keynes operation, and that restructuring would be carried out.

‘It is not entirely cost-driven; there is over-capacity in some areas,’ a Jaguar spokesman said. ‘The global economy shows no signs of an immediate recovery and by adopting this course of action we can be fully prepared for the conditions that face us.’
40-60 workers will lose their jobs as part of a personnel cutback at Jaguar
Jaguar is the fourth team in the past 12 months to announce job cuts after British American Racing, Jordan, and Minardi, all midfield to lower ranking teams. The Prost team went bankrupt before the start of this season and Arrows could be forced out of the sport if new German investment does not provide the team with a sustainable solution.

Ford gave Jaguar its backing to continue amid uncertainty over the team’s future late last season due to lack of results. But it will not continue to throw money at the operation, the announcement of job cuts an indication that officials at the top of the Blue Oval are relying on the Leaping Cat to adopt a more prudent approach to the running of the team.

Sounds like money problems are really creating problems for the mid feild runners,also reading between the lines looks like Ford has said get some results our we're out of here.

[Sato san]

Sounds like nearly every team are feeling the pinch of the current climate in some way...

[Mr V]

Originally posted by Armco Bender

reading between the lines looks like Ford has said get some results our we're out of here.

This must be why they have decided to go into "partnership??" with Jordan as engine suppliers, in therory, they can't lose, providing either Jag or Jordan do well (or both of course), if neither team do well then they might be in trouble.

[Maxmil]

Originally posted by Armco Bender
. . . reading between the lines looks like Ford has said get some results our we're out of here.

I got a slightly different take on this than mr v. The first article I read on the job cuts stated that these were company wide, and included Cosworth and other parts of the Premier Performance Group or whatever FOMOCO calls Lauda's little domain. This is a standard Detroit practice in tough times. Every part of the whole organization is given a target - say 16% reduction in staff - with no appeals and no exceptions, period end. It is almost impossible to get agreement for such a program, it must be mandated from above and enforced ruthlessly or it will degenerate into chaos.

There may also have been considerable dissatisfaction at very high levels in the Glass House over the unseemly goings on over the Cosworth/Jordan deal. F1 Racing magazine is reporting in the December issue - which arrived yeaterday - that the Jaguar and Jordan PR troops actually came to "verbal and physical abuse" of each other in the paddock at Indianapolis. This is not the sort of stuff that the Directors at The Great Ford Motor Company enjoy hearing and/or reading about. I can just hear someone saying, "If these so-and-sos at Jaguar and Cosworth have got nothing better to do than beat up on each other in public, then it's time for a rif." (RIF in Deotroitspeak is short for "reduction in force.") Not a very scientific method of cost cutting, but stranger things have happened.