Aston Martin to Cut a Third of its Workforce

The strain of the car sales slump has hit even the high British luxury marques. Aston Martin has announced that due to slow sales of their sports cars that it will be slashing about a third of its 1,850 employee workforce. This goes to show that even the rich are watching their bank statements.

Aston, which is based in Gaydon, Warwickshire in the UK, will cut 300 permanent workers and an equal number of contractors. Furthermore, the staff will receive an extended Christmas vacation as production will not resume for an additional two weeks after the normal Christmas break.

Other British brands are cutting back as well. This announcement comes only days after Rolls Royce proclaimed that it would be temporarily shutting down its plant and cutting jobs at Goodwood, West Sussex. News from Crewe reports that Bentley has also announced two rounds of production cut backs and it too will be shrinking its plant staff.

The brand that brings you premium sports cars from the $113,400 V8 Vantage, to the range-topping $265,000 DBS also announced that sales this year would unsurprisingly fall short of the 7,000 unit figure from 2007. One can only wonder if bidders for all 77 of the limited edition One-77 supercars will be able to pony up all £1.2m of the car's estimated base price

Posted in: Aston Martin