Vauxhall announces that jobs will go at its Luton van plant

• 500 UK jobs will be lost in restructuring
• Opel/Vauxhall to cut 8,300 jobs across Europe

More than 500 jobs in the UK will be cut as part of the restructuring plan announced today by Opel/Vauxhall, that will see 8,300 job losses across Europe. Most of the UK cuts will be at its Luton van plant where 369 posts will be lost. In addition, a further 154 sales and admin jobs will go.

Opel/Vauxhall also formally applied for €2.7bn (£2.4bn) of loan guarantees from European governments to fund the plan.

The company said that in total €11bn will be invested in the business over the next five years, including €1.25bn from US parent company GM, and that it would launch eight new models this year. In order to break even next year, it said that 8,300 jobs would be cut in total in Europe as the company reduced capacity by a fifth. Around half the jobs will be lost in Germany.

Last year, when GM came close to selling Opel/Vauxhall to Magna, a Russian backed consortium, the new owners were planning to make more than 10,000 job cuts. Because the German government had promised to bankroll the Magna plan, unions and politicians feared that the cuts would be deeper in other countries such as the UK.

Today’s announcement also offered hope for the Luton van plant’s future. The Vauxhall factory makes Vivaro vans in a joint venture with Renault which expires in 2013 and its future beyond that date is uncertain. Opel/Vauxhall had previously said it was looking at the viability of making new van models at the plant. This morning the company said it would “make a strong push in the light commercial vehicle business”.