Decision by carmaker, which is battling Trump tariffs and fallout from cyber-attack, labelled a ‘body blow for workers’

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Jaguar Land Rover has announced thousands of job cuts in a “body blow for workers” as it grapples with tough trading conditions, Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack.

Britain’s largest carmaker, which is owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata, confirmed the anticipated cuts on Monday, saying it wants to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 over two years, as part of an effort to save £1.7bn.

Protest using 10 coffins to symbolise struggling manufacturing industry to take place in Brussels

Job losses in EU manufacturing will rapidly increase unless Brussels stops the “colonisation” of industry by Chinese component manufacturers, a leading industry trade body has warned.

Eurometal predicts 300,000 job losses in manufacturing in the rest of 2026 because of expanding competition from China, which is now enjoying a record €1bn-a-day trade surplus with the bloc.

Under-pressure carmaker will shed 15% of workforce and halve its product line in sector’s biggest ever restructure

The car company Volkswagen has approved controversial plans to shed 100,000 jobs in a battle for survival as it faces fierce competition from Chinese rivals.

After the latest round of talks this week, the company announced a further 50,000 job cuts and agreed a staggered end to current production at four German plants: Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and the Audi site in Neckarsulm between 2031 to 2034. There are no specific plans beyond that.

Free AI models that are as good as the investment-hungry US versions will disrupt global markets, and offer Britain a lesson

Almost from the moment it began, the end of the Chinese economic miracle has been much anticipated. Thick and fast, the books have come explaining how it will end badly. Overinvestment. A country wallowing in debt. The collapse of the property market. Political repression. The demand for democracy from a growing middle class. All have been put forward as reasons for the inevitable terminal crisis.

Even those impressed by the country’s rapid growth took comfort from the notion that the west would continue to dominate advanced manufacturing while China would be stuck assembling TVs. And while the wait for its much-predicted demise has gone on and on, China has become the workshop of the world.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

Operating at only half its capacity, Japanese carmaker’s Sunderland factory seeks deal with China’s Chery as it battles Brexit threats

In a factory in Gateshead, engineers carefully wind metal wires around iron cores to go in electric motors. Here, workers produce a smaller “pancake motor”, which generates higher torque than conventional versions for supercars or construction equipment.

These workers form part of north-east England’s automotive industry, which has experienced a long line of political disruptions, from Margaret Thatcher’s efforts to attract international investment, through Brexit and now Andy Burnham’s reindustrialisation strategy.

In a disrupted job market people are turning to heritage crafts such as bookbinding, metalwork and boatbuilding

It’s a bleak moment for young people entering the workforce for the first time. For decades, a university degree seemed to promise a stable career – but entry-level white-collar jobs across almost all sectors are being disrupted by AI. Budding accountants, software engineers and junior lawyers increasingly find themselves displaced by cheap automation.

Even creative fields are struggling against AI tech that can produce artwork, lengthy prose or complex design briefs in seconds.

Oliver Blume faces workforce at German HQ as carmaker struggles against Chinese competition and US tariffs

The chief executive of Volkswagen has faced boos and whistles of protest at the company’s headquarters after telling thousands of workers that a comprehensive reorganisation, which could include job losses and factory closures, is vital for its future.

As Oliver Blume urged more than 10,000 workers on Tuesday to “pull together”, saying drastic restructuring measures at the struggling manufacturer were essential, they held up banners and shouted slogans, including: “Our jobs are not your balance sheet adjustments”.

State department says it has reached administrative settlement with company’s US arm to resolve breaches

The UK defence company BAE Systems is to pay a $36m (£26.7m) civil penalty after breaching US arms exports regulations more than 100 times.

The US Department of State announced on Thursday that it had reached an administrative settlement with the US arm of BAE to resolve 104 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Imports this year now account for 14% of the market amid claims vehicles are being dumped in the EU and UK

Chinese electric car sales have risen across Europe to a record high driven by strong demand and low tariffs in the UK and a surge in buyers in Italy.

Against a backdrop of claims that Chinese carmakers are “dumping” state-subsidised vehicles in the EU and UK to gain market share, the figures will give impetus to calls for quotas and higher tariffs to protect European manufacturers.

Manufacturer self-reported the offences in the tax authority’s largest such out-of-court settlement

Airbus has been fined £6.4m in the UK after the European aerospace company admitted to breaches of rules designed to stop sensitive goods such as military hardware falling into the wrong hands.

The company, which sits at the heart of the European defence industry, said it had paid the settlement to the UK’s tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs, after self-reporting breaches that occurred before November 2022.

Failing to keep accurate records of transfers of controlled technology as per the conditions of three of their open general export licences (Ogels).

Failing to keep registers in relation to Ogels.

Failing to keep accurate records contrary to the conditions of one of their Ogels.

A failure of licence conditions on a standard individual export licence (Siel).

Layoffs will come in admin and development divisions in Germany, with production operations unaffected

BMW is planning to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in Germany, according to reports, in the latest sign of Europe’s largest carmakers reducing costs under pressure from Chinese rivals.

The Munich-headquartered company has started a voluntary redundancy programme agreed with employee representatives, a BMW spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Drop comes after South Korean company SK Hynix’s results undershoot investors’ expectations

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Shares in companies linked to AI have plunged further after disappointing results from the South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, which sent the country’s stock market tumbling for a second day in a row.

Seoul’s Kospi index, which is dominated by semiconductor manufacturers, slid by as much as 12.6% at one point on Wednesday, following on from a near 11% slump the previous day, reaching its lowest level since early April.

Carmaker expects to sell 3% fewer vehicles this year as it pushes through a programme that could eliminate 100,000 roles

Volkswagen has reported a steep fall in profits and cut its revenue forecast amid a sales slump in China, as the German carmaker pushes through a brutal cost-cutting programme that includes axeing up to 100,000 jobs.

VW said it expects sales revenue to fall by up to 3% this year, a reversal of a previous forecast for a 3% increase on last year’s €321.9bn (£275.3bn), because of a sales slump in the highly competitive Chinese market.

Such technology solves problem of longer, thinner, energy-saving wings not fitting in airports around the world

Airbus has said it will test folding wings for the next generation of its bestselling planes, as the world’s largest planemaker races to work out the shape of future commercial aircraft by the end of the decade.

Longer, thinner wings made of light but strong composite materials offer the promise of energy savings but present a problem for manufacturers because they will not fit in airports around the world, many of which are already at or near full capacity.

Vertical Aerospace says government has given £10m backing, taking its total investment in the project to £48m

British flying taxi startup Vertical Aerospace has said the UK government has expressed interest in buying a military variant of its aircraft as it races to gain approval for flights with paying passengers.

Vertical also welcomed another £10m grant from the government, taking its total UK state funding to £48m.

The aerospace giant is seeking UK government support for its re-entry into the huge narrowbody jet market

In a 100-year-old hangar at Rolls-Royce’s factory in Derby, aircraft engines lie on their noses as technicians strip them down after a couple of years circling the world.

Cranes lift and flip the engines, before engineers separate different modules to be cleaned, treated in acid baths if necessary, repaired or replaced. The acrid smell of kerosene signals the part of the factory where engineers handle the metre-diameter core of the engine, in which fuel and air combine at high pressure to drive the turbines and propel 200-tonne planes through the air.

Scunthorpe factory expropriated from China’s Jingye and ministers will ask a valuer to assess compensation

British Steel has formally been taken into public ownership 15 months after the government stepped in to prevent the closure of its steelworks in Scunthorpe and the loss of 4,000 jobs.

Keir Starmer on Thursday said it was in the national interest for the government to take over the factory from its Chinese owner, Jingye, in one of the last significant actions overseen by him as prime minister after the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act received royal assent on Wednesday.

Robust action is needed to protect European industries from unfair competition. The alternative is social strife amid growing insecurity

According to a recent analysis, China enjoys a surplus in its manufactured goods trade with the European Union that is roughly equivalent to Italy’s national income. That trade disparity, it is estimated, continues to grow by about 30% each year. The stark implication, according to a paper from Centre for European Reform, is that Europe, with Germany in the frontline, risks “deindustrialisation at China’s hand”.

The gravity of the threat was grimly evident in the car industry last week, as Volkswagen’s supervisory board met to discuss radical proposals to cut 100,000 jobs – around a sixth of the company’s global workforce – and close plants. Taking into account indirect as well as direct employment, the automotive sector is responsible for around 3m jobs in Germany. But manufacturers in the country’s flagship industry have found themselves in a triple bind.

Demonstrations at 18 sites set up as radical transformation plan put to board of Europe’s biggest carmaker

Volkswagen’s proposal to slash up to 100,000 jobs and close factories faces a major test on Thursday as they are formally put to its supervisory board, with protests planned at all plants in Germany.

IG Metall, the influential staff union, has organised demonstrations involving shop stewards and union council members at 18 sites at Europe’s biggest carmaker, including its headquarters. It told the chief executive, Oliver Blume, that he cannot “pass the buck for failures of recent years on to the workforce”.

Collieries turned into retail parks, manufacturing in the doldrums. The problem is vast, but at least the PM-in-waiting sees it: and in that there is hope

In the autumn of 2005, Tony Blair gave one of his most unhinged and fascinating speeches as prime minister. “I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalisation,” he said. “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.” He went on: “The character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition. Unforgiving of frailty … It has no custom and practice. It is replete with opportunities, but they only go to those swift to adapt, slow to complain, open, willing and able to change.”

In the hall, his characteristically messianic delivery ensured this argument landed, but anyone listening from one of the UK’s deindustrialised areas must have received it as yet another punch in the face. For decades, change and adaptation were what they had been living through and reeling from – but where were the rewards? Where, indeed, was any real sign of even the beginnings of the 21st-century prosperity Blair seemed to be offering?

John Harris is a Guardian columnist