London: British car manufacturing giant Jaguar Land Rover, which is partly owned by the TATA Group, appears to have come out of the red, and is on a hiring spree.
It has already announced 1500 new UK posts. But three times that number may be needed if the company's strategy goes to plan, The Telegraph reports.
In the recession, JLR was set to close one of its three UK manufacturing plants. That has now been shelved.
A major part of this recovery involves the new Range Rover Evoque, recently launched at the Paris Motor Show, with a five door model unveiled this week at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
The company has received 13,000 applications for 1,500 new jobs
The company's latest, smallest and most fuel-efficient Range Rover will be built at the Halewood plant on Merseyside.
Land Rover MD Phil Popham said: "We've got a long term ambitious plan at Land Rover to grow our business and to grow it profitably, that's expanding into new markets and expanding our product range, while focusing on efficiency and costs.
He added: "We have a real opportunity with the products we're introducing to be a big success globally."
The JLR workforce has recently signed a pay deal of five per cent this year and inflation plus 0.5 percent in 2011.
Des Quinn, of the Unite Union, said: "It is a good pay deal which brings stability and loyalty. We know the company is looking for engineers all the time to develop these marvellous cars."
Quinn added: "On top of that, if all the plans come to fruition they will need people to build them and we are talking about 5,000 people. They will be long term jobs here in the UK."