Third shift creates 400 Nissan jobs

From May, a nightshift will be added to the Qashqai production line and is expected to be operational for around six months.

Recruitment will begin in February for 400 new fixed-term manufacturing posts at the plant and it is anticipated that additional posts will be created across Nissan’s supply chain.

Nissan said in a statement that it first implemented a temporary nightshift at Sunderland in June 2008 to satisfy demand for the car, but this was withdrawn last January in response to the global economic downturn.

However, the latest forecast for the 2009 financial year, ending 31st March, anticipates more than 200,000 Qashqai sales in Europe.

‘Qashqai continues to buck the trend of a generally depressed market and we have now identified the need for an additional shift to cover a high-volume request in the first half of the 2010 Financial Year,’ said Trevor Mann, Nissan senior vice president for manufacturing, Europe

Since its sales launch in March 2007, more than half a million units have been sold across Europe and the model accounted for 60 per cent of Sunderland’s 2009 total production volume of 338,000 cars.