The recent rise in car production figures has not prevented further pain the automotive sector after Toyota announced it was shedding more jobs.

The Japanese car maker said that a total of 750 posts would be lost at its plants in Deeside and Burnaston in Derbyshire – presenting another blow to the West Midlands automotive sector.

The car maker, which employs about 3,500 people at its two UK plants, said all redundancies will be voluntary.

The announcement comes before staff return to full time hours in April after a year of a 10 per cent reduction in hours and pay although the company has also announced a pay freeze will be imposed due to the “severe economic climate”.

Deputy managing director Tony Walker said the majority of the redundancies would come from the Derbyshire plant with around 150 coming from the 536 currently employed on Deeside.

“We had a crisis a year ago, we were able to take temporary measures but now it seems we have to be able to be efficient at lower volumes,” he said.

The announcement comes after a torrid few months for the firm which posted record losses last year and has had to recall a number of models due to technical problems.

Despite halving its annual losses, the company closed down one of its Japanese production lines for a year after posting losses of £2.9billion and the company also pulled out of Formula One due to the spiralling costs.

The company’s award-winning hybrid Prius has also been the subject of a global recall to fix a suspected brake issue.

However, the car has also been involved in a recent court case where an elderly man had been the accused of causing death by reckless driving after he ran over his wife in his Prius.

The jury in the case has subsequently been discharged after the judge ordered the car to undergo further tests after the defendant claimed the car shot forward.

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