JCB has announced its intention to axe 500 manufacturing jobs in the UK, in the first wave of redundancies to hit the construction plant sector.

The excavator manufacturer said it had been hit by a 鈥渞apid decline鈥� in business, with its forecast production schedule for the year down by 20%. The redundancies will come from JCB鈥檚 11 factories in Staffordshire, Wrexham in north Wales and Derbyshire.