(Yicai) Nov. 9 -- Chery Jaguar Land Rover, the joint venture between Chinese carmaker Chery Automobile and UK auto giant Jaguar Land Rover Automotive, has confirmed it let go some employees but denied reports of massive layoffs.

Chery Jaguar Land Rover let go less than 3 percent of its staff to upgrade products and improve management efficiency and optimized its organizational structure to promote healthy and sustainable development, the JV announced on Chinese social media platform Weibo yesterday.

After the job cuts earlier this year, Chery Jaguar Land Rover carried out another round of layoffs last month, dismissing 15 percent to 20 percent of its staff in the product engineering, quality management, production and manufacturing, and logistics management departments, according to media reports.

Chery Jaguar Land Rover was founded in 2012 by Chery Auto and Jaguar Land Rover, each taking a 50 percent stake. Jaguar Land Rover sold 146,000 vehicles in China in 2017, accounting for nearly one-quarter of its global total, while Chery Jaguar Land Rover sold 84,000 vehicles that year.

The JV sold 38,112 cars in the first nine months of the year. Its sales fell 6 percent to 50,900 units last year from the previous one.

Chery Jaguar Land Rover is proceeding slowly in its electric vehicle transition. Jaguar unveiled its first EV in 2018, but it was overshadowed by new EVs before it even became known to consumers, Li Jie, executive vice president of Jaguar Land Rover China, said at the China International Import Expo on Nov. 7.

EV brands Nio and HiPhi have also cut employees.

Price wars are frequent in China’s automobile market because of the fierce competition, so cutting employees and carrying out significant organizational adjustments will become a regular practice for automakers, an investor in the new energy vehicle industry told Yicai. Mergers and acquisitions between carmakers will also become more frequent, the investor added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione