Birmingham workers' jobs were today spared despite car parts giant GKN revealing it was to spend up to £150 million transferring work to cheap-labour countries.
The Redditch-based engineer warned it was preparing to shift a fifth of its crucial Driveline division from high-cost, low growth economies to faster growing developing nations.
Fears initially grew today that the new strategy could massively impact on UK operations where the group has 1,200 employed in the output of vehicle constant velocity joints.
Most of the jobs are based at the former Hardy Spicer plant at Erdington and GKN facility at Aldridge.
But the boom of Japanese car-making customers in Britain such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan appeared to have swung the balance in favour of maintaining UK jobs.
Senior spokesman Peter Baillie said: There is a lot of consultation and discussions yet to take place but I think it would be a reasonable assumption that these changes are unlikely to significantly impact on UK operations.
He said GKN produced Driveline products in high cost countries such as America, Germany, France, Japan and Italy as well as the UK. But Mr Baillie said other areas such as Latin America, Thailand and China were faster growing with lower costs.
GKN admitted restructuring of the Driveline division would cost £35 million a year with other non-cash costs bringing the final tally to £150 million.
News of the switch, which will take place over the next three years, came as the group unveiled disappointing figures for 2003.
Overall the global empire, which originated in the Midlands as Guest, Keen and Nettlefold, saw pre-tax profits dip four per cent in 2003 to £173 million although sales rose three per cent to £4.58 billion.
