Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to axe 300 jobs on Merseyside by the end of the year after ending the production of its X-Type car.

The company will seek voluntary redundancies at the factory in Halewood, which employs about 2,000 workers, and will also close for three weeks in September in response to the weak car market.

David Smith, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Our industry has been especially badly hit by the recession and the premium sector more than others.

“Jaguar Land Rover’s retail sales fell by 28 per cent in the past 10 months. We have taken unprecedented actions to cut costs including reduced production volumes, significant cuts to investment plans and some 2,200 job losses.

“Ceasing production of the X-Type early, with further redundancies and temporary shutdowns at Halewood is necessary to protect our other investment plans.”

Mr Smith added that further actions would be determined by the state of the market.

In June, JLR reported a pre-tax loss of £281 million loss for the 10 months to March 31 and warned that further job cuts and factory shutdowns were likely.

JLR’s poor performance dragged Tata Motors, which bought the British business from Ford in June 2008 for £1.7 billion, to a net loss of $520 million — its first annual loss for eight years.

Factbox: Jaguar X-Type

• Introduced in 2001

• The plant in Halewood had previously been used to make Ford Escorts

• Many key components of the X-Type were taken from the Ford Mondeo, adding to its relatively blue-collar image

• The first Jaguar X-Type could be purchased for $30,000, but the extras were pricey

• The X-Type was the first Jaguar to use all-wheel drive instead of rear-wheel drive. That was just one of many Jaguar traditions the X-Type would break with

• In an effort to make the X-Type even more affordable, in 2002 the first Jaguar with front-wheel drive was produced

• New company car tax legislation prompted the production of the diesel version of the X-Type, introduced in 2003. It was the first diesel-engine Jaguar

• The 2003 diesel X-Type was also the first 4-cylinder Jaguar in over five decades

• 2004’s Jaguar X-Type Estate was the first 2-door Jaguar

• The X-Type was supposed to compete with the BMW 3-Series, but never succeeded. In 2005, the 3-Series outsold the X-Type 10-to-1

• Jaguar has sold over 350,000 X-Types in eight years, but this is far below the original goal Ford had of 100,000 per year

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