SKF, the world's largest ball bearing maker, cuts 900 more jobs

Sweden's SKF, the world's largest ball bearings maker, cut 82 British jobs on Tuesday as the group reduced its total headcount by a further 900, as it struggles to cope with the global collapse in manufacturing.

The cuts come on top of 4,800 previously announced job cuts.

Sharon Smith, managing director of SKF, said: "Our super precision bearings manufacturing unit supplies products to the machine tool sector, where demand has been in decline since last year. Unfortunately, we do not anticipate that this situation will change in the foreseeable future and have therefore had to make the difficult decision to stop production in the UK."

The company will also close a factory in France and cut jobs in India and Sweden. A further 18,000 people are working reduced shifts.

At the end of last year SKF employed 44,799 worldwide, including 1,100 in the UK.

SKF hopes the restructuring, which will cost 700m crowns (£55m) , will save the company 300 crowns a year.

SKF, which was founded in 1907, is seen as an industry bellwether as its products are used in everything from Rolls-Royce jet engines to the machines which bottle Absolut vodka.

Last month Tom Johnstone, chief executive of SKF, said the company is experiencing the fastest drop in demand since the Second World War. In the first quarter SKF's pre-tax profit dropped from 1.9bn crowns to 531m. At the time, Mr Johnstone said the company would "use every tool to avoid losing people – lose people and you lose competence".