Nissan expands axle shop

Nissan is to create 128 jobs at its plant in Sunderland in response to the continued sales success of the Qashqai.

In January, Nissan announced that the plant had launched one of its largest ever recruitment campaigns to hire 800 staff, ahead of the implementation of a third production shift in June.

The plant is now looking to recruit extra staff as its axle production shop undergoes a £5m expansion to support a significant increase in Qashqai volume. Of the 128 posts needed to staff the new axle operation, 50 are in addition to the 800 previously announced.

Since its launch in March 2007, nearly 150,000 units of the car have been sold across Europe, and there is currently a customer order bank of 54,000.

This level of demand led Sunderland to announce the introduction of an extra production shift this summer on one of its two manufacturing lines, allowing the plant to ramp up Qashqai production to over 200,000 cars per year.