NISSAN will re-employ 150 of its temporary workers made redundant earlier this year to help its North-East plant accommodate a significant short-term rise in work, it was revealed yesterday.

The Japanese car maker said that as a result of scrappage initiatives operating around Europe, and the impending scrappage scheme in the UK, it is planning to make an extra 14,000 of its Qashqai, Micra and Note models at its Sunderland plant in the next four months.

To help the site meet the additional demand, 150 jobs will be created on fixed-term contracts for the duration of the work – and could be extended depending on subsequent demand.

Yesterday, a spokesman at the Sunderland plant told The Northern Echo it would be targeting some of the 400 temporary workers who lost their jobs through the 1,200 redundancies made at the site in January. The cuts, which accounted for nearly a quarter of the plant’s workforce, were made after sales of Nissan cars plummeted amid the massive downturn in the motor industry.

However, Nissan said that as a result of scrappage schemes in operation in some of its key European markets, it had seen a significant yearon- year increase in sales for April. In France, sales rose 31 per cent, in Italy they rose 21 per cent, and Germany saw a nine per cent lift.

Trevor Mann, Nissan’s senior vice president for manufacturing in Europe, stressed the upturn in demand was short-term, and remained cautious for the future.

“The impact of the financial crisis is continuing and our 2009 full-year forecasts still reflect a depressed market overall,” he said.