Jaguar Land Rover is to shed 200 jobs across its UK operations. The announcement came on Wednesday although the company stressed the redundancies were nothing to do with the current economic downturn or the slump in new car sales.

The company, now owned by India’s Tata Motors, has carried out a voluntary redundancy scheme for several years now, each time around this time of year.

Spokesman Don Hume said: “It is a small redundancy programme and it affects 198 staff across all our manufacturing sites, including Halewood.

“It affects hourly paid employees and is part of the company’s on going drive to improve efficiency.”

The employees will each receive a nine-month lump sum based on current salary and any over 60 will be entitled to their full pension allowance.

The redundancies are planned to take effect by the end of next month and the company said it was not intending to make any compulsory cuts in workforce.

While on a small scale, the redundancies come at what is a difficult time for the firm.

After basking in a sales boost courtesy of its award-winning XF, the company has been brought down to earth with a bump due to falling demand for its luxury 4x4s in its established markets in Europe and the United States.

Last month, the firm announced it was easing output of Jaguar models at its Castle Bromwich plant, while Land Rover has axed a night shift at its Lode Lane factory in Solihull and put some models on a four-day week production cycle.

Halewood, which employs around 2,500 people and builds the Jaguar X-type saloon and the Land Rover Freelander, is to close for a week at the end of the month to try and ease over-capacity. Staff will continue to be paid.

The firm also said that workers on Jaguar’s XJ and XK production lines are likely to stay on a four-day week for the rest of 2008.

Up until the Christmas and New Year shutdown, Fridays will be dedicated to training and maintenance work with workers undertaking courses on new techniques such as lean manufacturing.

It is understood that the four-day week will reduce XJ and XK production by a maximum of 400 models. The situation will be reviewed early next year.

Ironically, Jaguar bucked the trend for declining sales last month, with the XF Factor still winning new customers.

The company saw a four per cent rise in UK sales with 3,608 cars heading out of showrooms, compared with 3,484 in September last year