Jaguar Land Rover to hire redundant Meta and Twitter staff

Twitter and Meta have made widely publicised mass lay-offs

Car maker opens “almost 800" vacancies in digital teams following turmoil in the technology industry

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plans to capitalise on mass lay-offs at Meta and Twitter as it accelerates its push to become a data-first company.

JLR is offering "almost 800" vacancies across China, Hungary, India, Ireland, the UK and the US with hybrid working patterns for those displaced in the tech industry.

The emphasis of hybrid working is likely targeted at ex-Twitter employees, as many are reported to have left the company as a result of policy changes following its acquisition by Tesla chief Elon Musk.

“We are also changing Twitter policy such that remote work is no longer allowed, unless you have a specific exception,” Musk wrote in a company memo sent on 10 November. This was a marked change from Twitter’s policy of ‘work from anywhere’ introduced under former CEO Parag Agrawal in March.

Meanwhile, Meta – which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp – announced plans to make 13% of its workforce (more than 11,000 people) redundant on 9 November. That announcement followed a poor third quarter in which its year-on-year operating income dropped 46% to $5.66 billion (£4.74bn).

The roles offered by JLR encompass most of its digital teams: autonomous driving, artificial intelligence, cloud software, data science, electrification, machine learning and more.

Chief information officer Anthony Battle said: “We are further strengthening our data and digital skills base so we can deliver our Reimagine strategy and become an electric-first business from 2025 and achieve carbon net-zero by 2039.

“Our digital transformation journey is well under way, but being able to recruit highly skilled digital workers is an important next step. We are pleased to be able to provide opportunities to talented individuals with digital capabilities.”

In August, JLR announced a partnership with training platform Multiverse to offer more than 400 of its UK staff a specialist course in computer programming and data analysis. And earlier this year, it established a multi-year partnership with American artificial intelligence (AI) and computing giant Nvidia to introduce heightened connectivity and autonomous driving functionality to JLR cars launched from 2025.

Whether these plans will change under the next permanent CEO – with finance boss Adrian Mardell stepping up to up to replace now-departed boss Thierry Bolloré – is yet to be seen.