UK: Nissan to add third shift and 800 staff at Tyne and Wear plant
Thursday, January 31, 2008, AutomotiveWorld.com
The small crossover, launched by Nissan Europe in March 2007, has been a highly successful model, selling 130,000 units as at the end of December. Three months after it went on sale, production at the Sunderland plant was raised by 20% to help meet demand.
The facility achieved a record annual production volume of 353,000 units of Qashqai, Note, Micra and Micra C+C in 2007, surpassing its previous high of 332,000 set in 2003, Nissan states.
Orders are claimed to be above the original forecast and a customer order bank of 60,000 units exists, Nissan Europe says, leading to what will soon be one of the plant's largest yet recruitment drives.
By this coming December, 800 additional manufacturing staff will have been hired. Of these, 400 will be permanent positions, with the remainder temporary contracts.
In addition, all of the plant's current temporary manufacturing staff will be offered permanent positions with the company on a rolling basis throughout the year, subject to performance and sustained volume. These measures will allow Sunderland to implement a third nighttime shift on the line responsible for Qashqai production.
Trevor Mann, Nissan Europe's senior vice president for manufacturing and supply chain management, says the factory is currently building an average of 200,000 Qashqais on a two-shift system.
"Across the UK, car production grew by 6% in 2007 and we are now making nearly twice as many cars as 25 years ago," the UK government's business minister, Shriti Vadera added in a statement accompanying the OEM's announcement.
The Qashqai was designed at Nissan Design Europe, situated in Paddington, a suburb of London, while technical development was undertaken at its technical centre in Cranfield, also in England.
Nissan's Sunderland plant, established in 1984, is the UK's largest car producer and exporter, the company says, and currently employs 4,200 staff. In 2007, workers there built the following volume of vehicles: Qashqai 164,133 units; Note 92,678 units; Micra 88,533 units; Micra C+C 5,616 units.
Nissan Europe's Qashqai's top five markets in 2007 were as follows: UK (18,435), Russia (17,414), Italy (11,965), Germany (11,490) and Spain (10,664).
Published on Thursday, January 31, 2008
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