JCB's Chairman, Lord Bamford, has revealed the business is off to a "strong" start in 2018.

With order books at their strongest in the company's history, the company has rewarded around 3,200 shop floor employees with a 3.9% pay rise as they return to work for the New Year, as part of a three-year wage deal. It follows a £500 Christmas bonus paid to all 5,500 UK employees.

Over the past 12 months, JCB has recruited more than 1,200 people at its 11 UK factories in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Wales and handed permanent contracts to 150 agency employees.

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Having increased purchasing spend globally to more than £2 billion a year, spending with the company’s 2,500 UK suppliers has also risen by 13% compared to 2016.

Lord Bamford said: "The industry in which we operate is doing very well at the moment, which is not only good news for JCB, it’s good news for our region and good news for Britain.

"Our spending with UK suppliers has increased substantially over the past year and we are already off to a very strong start in 2018 with a very healthy order bank in place.

"In my view there is every reason to be optimistic about the future and in particular the future of the British economy.

"With unemployment at its lowest level for more than 40 years, we face some challenges with recruitment but that is a great challenge to have to overcome and a very positive position for the UK to find itself in."

(LM/MH)