Profits plunge as Honda shuts down

Honda will start a four-month shutdown at the end of today, as it announced a record fall in profits.

The halt in production, which affects 3000 of its 4000 UK workers, means there will be no British-built Honda cars produced before June.

Workers will receive full basic pay for two months, then 60% thereafter.

Staff will return to the production line on June 1, but they'll be making half the number of vehicles that they were producing previously.

The shutdown comes on the same day that Honda announced their third quarter global net profits had plunged by 89%.

Honda joins Bentley, Jaguar Land Rover and Vauxhall in cutting UK production because of the sharp downturn in demand for new cars.