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The Oxford Mail has reported that workers at BMW Group Plant Oxford, home of worldwide MINI production, have reached an agreement with their employee over new working patterns, including the option of a Saturday shift as much as twice a month.

The shuffling of shifts has come about due to staffing levels being reduced following redundancies made during the past year and an apparent upturn in orders during May, which it seems MINI hopes are positive signs of more good news, and higher order levels, to come.

Representatives of both MINI and parent company BMW have been predicting an upturn in fortunes during the latter stages of 2009, despite current year on year sales being down nearly a quarter compared to the same duration in 2008.

The UKs Government backed scrappage scheme comes into effect today, and with MINI United only a matter of days away, and new product announcements along with it, perhaps MINI are pinning their hopes on improved affordability and high levels of publicity and goodwill towards the brand to spur on dithering buyers to commit to a new MINI come the end of summer.

Spokesman Rebecca Baxter is quoted in the Oxford mail as saying

We were already working Mini as a built-to-order brand, and as such Plant Oxford needs to have the right shift patterns in place to deal with fluctuations in customer demand and the high degree of market volatility.

Tags: bmw, bmw group plant oxford, mini, mini united, plant oxford

This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.