ONE hundred temporary workers who were made redundant from Nissan’s Sunderland plant earlier this year are to be re-employed, it was revealed yesterday.

The move, to help meet renewed demand through the car scrappage scheme across Europe, follows the reemployment of 150 more workers last month, who were also laid off as part of the 1,200 redundancies made in the North-East by the Japanese car manufacturer in January.

The recruitment – which has seen more than half the 400 temporary workers made redundant taken back on – has offered everyone fourmonth fixed-term contracts, which could be extended, depending on demand.

The Sunderland factory, which lost nearly a quarter of its workforce through redundancies, said the move was a “valuable shot in the arm” for the plant.

Following the launch of the UK scrappage scheme, which offers substantial discounts on new vehicles in return for scrapping cars at least ten years old, the Sunderland plant is to make an extra 18,000 Note and Micra models from now until September to meet demand.

Additional workers were taken on last month to produce 14,000 more Qashqai, Micra and Note models to meet demand from France, Germany and Italy as a result of their scrappage initiatives.

It is the latest encouraging sign for the Sunderland plant in a week, after its Qashqai model was revealed as one of the top ten UK best-sellers, defying the 25 per cent drop in new car sales to see 2,629 Qashqais sold last month– a 73 per cent year-on-year increase.

Despite the £1.58bn annual group loss made by Nissan last year, chief executive Carlos Ghosn predicted that the company’s European operation would be boosted by scrappage – a prediction which is going according to plan.

Kevin Fitzpatrick, deputy managing director of the Sunderland plant, said it was a welcome boost, but stressed times still remain tough.

“The short-term spike in demand being delivered by all scrappage incentives is providing a valuable shot in the arm during a difficult period,”

he said.

“Sunderland models, particularly smaller cars like Note and Micra, are proving very popular with scrappage customers, and although the market remains highly volatile, we welcome this further opportunity to add to our workforce.”