Little hope for Rover’s staff

Rover employees whose jobs are threatened at the car firm’s Longbridge plant
will not be taken on by Peugeot, the only other major car maker in the
Midlands.

Mass redundancies are seen as inevitable at the West Midlands plant which
employs 9,000 people, after BMW announced it is disbanding its Rover
subsidiary.

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Last April, Peugeot recruited 900 staff – the equivalent of 10 per cent of
the Longbridge workforce – for its Ryton plant, near Coventry. But Peugeot
personnel director Mike Judge said this week he does not expect to take on any
more staff. "We did recruit some from Longbridge but in the foreseeable
future we are not anticipating any vacancies."

BMW announced last week that it is selling parts of Rover to venture capital
company Alchemy and car giant Ford. The number of redundancies will not be
clear for about six weeks.