Leading tyre maker, Apollo Tyres Ltd announced to start retrenchment drive, shedding about 1500 jobs, out of total headcount of 10,000, in days to come. The move is aimed to mitigate the impact of global slowdown on its business and register adequate growth rate by employing cost cutting and cost saving measures.

The firm has also decided to halt fresh recruitment until improvement in market conditions, adversely impacting tyre segment due to low demand and costly finance.

The chairman of Apollo group, Onkar Kanwar, in the sidelines of the FICCI AGM, said, "We are looking at about 15 per cent of contract and casual labours (for job cuts). We are not going to cut permanent jobs. The process has already started and we will shed about 1,500 jobs out of total employee strength of about 10,000 employees."

However, he expressed hope of early revival of market, helping it to see improved sales growth rate and net profit for the financial year '09.

Mr. Kanwar further said, "We will be doing better than the industry average...19 percent."