A business has shed 50 jobs because of problems in the automotive industry.

Engineering company Landis Lund, of Eastburn, Keighley, which supplies parts to the automotive industry, has been forced to lose an eighth of its workforce as part of a restructuring programme.

Mike Molyneaux, the firm's finance director, said: "We are basically suppliers to the global automotive industry.

"If you look at the industry around the world, various automotive companies are in trouble. We have just re-sized the company to the right level for the size of business that is out there.

"We still employ more than 350 people. We have a healthy order book and have orders throughout 2003.

"Obviously employees want to know their jobs are safe and people in the area want to know that the businesses are going to be safe, but there are no guarantees forever."

The redundancies have been made across the board, with a range of skilled, clerical and engineering staff losing their jobs.

The firm is part of international company UNOVA, a 1.5 billion dollar industrial technologies company, which has its head-quarters in Southern California.

Landis Lund manufactures and supplies high precision cylindrical grinding machinery for the car industry.

Ann Cryer, Keighley MP, said she was saddened to hear the news, and that it was a sign of further de-skilling of the district's workforce.

She said: "It is a great pity. In the past the Keighley district was a highly skilled area and now we are going more and more for the soft option of the service industry or assembly, rather than making parts.

"While we are still buying and using cars we should be at the forefront in putting those cars out.

"In Keighley we were producing the machines that produced the equipment that went into cars, and Landis Lund was one of those. You can't get more basic than that."