Recruiters are scrambling to place candidates affected by large-scale redundancies in the automotive manufacturing sector.

BMW’s Mini plant in Oxford stands to lose 850 temporary agency workers over the next few weeks. Multisector recruiter Right4Staff, which had the largest number of staff at the plant, has deployed two dedicated sales teams to the area to deal with the increase in demand.

A spokesperson from Right4Staff told Recruiter: “They are trying to sell and re-deploy in the area. It’s a difficult economic climate and it’s not been easy,” adding they are not just looking within this sector, but anywhere where the skill sets would be applicable.

A Manpower spokesperson told Recruiter it is meeting its temporary staff who were at the plant on a oneto- one basis, working with Jobcentre Plus and that it “hopes to use its extensive branch network to find alternative assignments”.

Armando Canales, general manager of technical recruiter ARRK’s research and development recruitment division, which works with Jaguar Land Rover and Ford, told Recruiter the company has lost 30% of its total contractors.

“We have been hit quite hard. The main difference this time is it’s worldwide. Before, if one region experienced a hit people could move and go to France or Germany, but those kind of options aren’t available at the moment,” he said.

Canales said the company is looking to place some of the contractors in its internal product development division and is hiring consultants to target new sectors.

“We are having to hire more people with a different skill set who can train our in-house people, for example in the renewables sector,” he said.
The news of BMW’s layoffs was met with fury by trade bodies, including Unite, which described the manner in which BMW “targeted agency workers who have no rights to redundancy” as “blatant opportunism”.

Canales said: “At the end of the day the American model of flexibility has provided growth, but I’m not sure if it’s the way to go. I think there needs to be more commitment to contractors.”