Jaguar Land Rover , Britain’s biggest carmaker, said on Tuesday it will extend a pause in production at its UK plants until Sept. 24, prolonging the shutdown to more than three weeks following a cyber attack earlier this month.
The company, owned by India’s Tata Motors, shut down its systems in early September after the breach disrupted manufacturing and retail operations. JLR said its three UK factories, which normally build about 1,000 cars daily, will remain offline, and many of its 33,000 employees have been told to stay home.
“We have taken this decision as our forensic investigation of the cyber incident continues, and as we consider the different stages of the controlled restart of our global operations, which will take time,” JLR said in a statement.
The suspension has raised concerns about the wider UK supply chain, which relies heavily on JLR and supports more than 100,000 jobs. The Unite trade union has warned of possible job losses and called for government support. Chris McDonald, a minister in the Department of Business and Trade, told Reuters he had met the company to “discuss their plans to resolve this issue and get production started again. Our cyber experts are supporting JLR to help them resolve this issue as quickly as possible,” he added.
British newspaper The Telegraph reported the shutdown could last until November, though JLR said that was not its position. The company has acknowledged that some data was affected, but has not confirmed whether customer, supplier or internal systems were compromised.
The disruption is the latest in a string of ransomware and cyber attacks against major UK businesses, including Marks & Spencer and the Co-op. It comes as JLR faces broader challenges, including weaker demand in China and Europe and delays in launching its electric vehicles. In July, the automaker reported an 11% drop in quarterly sales and trimmed its long-term profit margin target to 5%-7% from 10%, citing global trade uncertainty.