Even a maker of supercars isn’t insulated from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.K.-based McLaren is part-car maker and part-racing team, and it recently announced a restructuring plan that involves some 1,200 layoffs. This constitutes more than a quarter of the company’s workforce.
McLaren has reportedly been struggling with factory shutdowns and lack of in-person selling of its $200,000-and-higher portfolio of vehicles. Some models yield as much as $2 million.
Besides its lack of vehicle sales, McLaren’s Formula 1 racing team hasn’t seen the track in a while with the F1 season being postponed until at least July.
The other challenge for McLaren is that the technology solutions that it develops and sells to other businesses include heavily hit industries like automotive and motorsport.
Executive Chairman Paul Welsh said the layoffs come after exhausting “dramatic cost-saving measures across all areas of the business,” and that the organization has no choice at this point but to cut staff. Welsh added that McLaren plans to emerge as “an efficient, sustainable business with a clear course for returning to growth.”
And that may mean the business is more bullish on the public’s appetite for racing than for luxury cars. While auto and R&D layoffs will make up the vast majority of the layoffs, racing is only cutting 70 for now.
