Burberry closes plant and cuts almost 300 UK jobs

Burberry is the latest company to suffer amid the economic downturn after it announced it is to shut a sewing plant in Rotherham, South Yorkshire with the loss of 290 jobs.

The site in Eastwood is to close and 170 jobs will go, while a further 120 jobs will go at its only remaining UK plants in Castleford and Keighley, West Yorkshire.

Furthermore, it is to close its Spanish operations (Thomas Burberry) with 250 redundancies and production will be shifted to the firm’s Castleford facility, renowned for its famous trenchcoats.

The job losses are part of a cost-cutting programme, announced by the group last November.

The retailer, famed for its distinctive tartan pattern, reported a 9% increase in the three months to the end of December, but said this was partly due to discounting, particularly in December.

The GMB union described the job losses as bad news for Rotherham.

The redundancies at Burberry add to the growing list of job losses at companies in the UK.

Over the last week, more than 8,000 jobs have been lost and the list is expected to grow as the country enters recession.

Today, Dutch-owned food group Vion, announced it is axing more than 800 jobs. 470 jobs will go at the group’s Haverhill site in Suffolk, 200 at Malton in North Yorkshire and 150 at Cambuslang in Lanarkshire.

According to the group, which has a UK workforce of 14,500, the job losses are due to over-capacity in the UK meat processing sector.

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