The Japanese manufacturer is stepping up production by introducing an extra shift in order to meet European demand for the new Civic five- and three-door models.
The new Honda CR-V off-road vehicle, which was launched at the Paris Motor Show and goes on sale in January 2007, will also be manufactured there.
It is expected that the full production capacity of 250,000 units per year will be reached by the end of 2007. This is an increase of 32% from its current output of 190,000 cars.
Dave Hodgetts, director of planning and administration at Honda UK, says: “This next phase of development for Honda is a massive vote of confidence in all our associates working at the Swindon plant and clearly demonstrates Honda’s long-term commitment to British manufacturing.”
Recruitment for the jobs, the majority of which are in the production sector, begins immediately and coincides with the plant’s 20th anniversary of Honda first bringing production to the UK.
Employment opportunities for maintenance engineers and purchasing specialists have also been confirmed.
#AM_ART_SPLIT# Restructure for Honda UK sales
Honda UK is restructuring its sales operations to make dealer-manufacturer communications more effective.
A source inside Honda told AM there would be 27 redundancies from the manufacturer’s headquarters at Langley, Slough, 17 of which would be from the car division.
Paul Ormond, head of public relations at Honda UK, says that everything will be done to reallocate the jobs within Honda UK or Honda Europe.
“With this new reshuffle communications should become more relevant and efficient within the next five years,” says Ormond.
“We carried out a similar restructure a few years ago, which was successful and without any job losses.” Ewan Ramsay is general manager of the car division while Bernard Bradley is head of sales.
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