Jaguar Land Rover to hire 5,000 new people to develop autonomous and electric car technologies

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's largest carmaker Jaguar Land Rover will hire 5,000 new employees as it works to boost skills in areas such as driverless and electric vehicle technology, a popular area of ​​business as Prime Minister Theresa May kicks off negotiations to leave the European Union.

Jaguar Land Rover, which employs more than 40,000 people worldwide, said it would hire 1,000 electrical and software engineers and an additional 4,000 manufacturing staff, most of whom would be based in the UK.

The recruitment process will take place over the next 12 months as Britain negotiates its exit from the European Union, negotiations that carmakers have warned must result in a deal that preserves free trade to protect jobs.

Theresa May failed to win a majority in Parliament in the June 8 general election, and her Conservative Party is seeking to fulfill its previous promise of a clean break with the EU single market and customs union.

The renewed political uncertainty has taken a toll on business confidence in recent days, according to surveys and reports from business groups.

Hours before Brexit negotiations began, the heads of some of Britain's largest business lobby groups called on the government to take into account British business interests and reach a deal that preserves some of the benefits of the country's membership of the European Union, such as tariff-free trade, guarantees for European citizens living in the UK and minimal customs procedures.

British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said that if the UK left the European Union without a deal, it would be "an extremely bad outcome for the UK" and said he hoped the Brexit deal would support jobs and investment.

"When I talk about a Brexit deal that supports British jobs, British investment and British business, I mean that those cliff edges should generally be avoided," Hammond told BBC television on Sunday.

Jaguar Land Rover, which is currently owned by India's Tata Motors, will produce its first electric car, called the I-PACE, in Austria, but has said it hopes to build the model in Britain if certain conditions are met, such as government support and academic requirements.

Carmakers are racing to produce greener cars with longer range on a single charge to meet rising customer demand and air quality targets, but Britain lacks enough manufacturing capacity and government ministers have said they want to increase it.

Jaguar Land Rover, which produces nearly a third of Britain's 1.7 million cars a year, has said half of all new models will be electrified by the end of 2019, but that will require new skills for its workforce.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.