Hundreds of jobs will be lost in Northern Ireland after Bombardier announced it is to cut production of its largest business jets.
The Canadian train and aircraft manufacturer confirmed on Thursday that more than 1,750 posts across Canada and Northern Ireland would be axed amid waning demand for planes designed to whisk corporate executives between meetings.
About 280 jobs will go in Bombardier Aerospace’s Belfast operation, one of the province’s biggest single employers. The company said it hoped to mitigate the impact with redeployment and that it would look to limit redundancies, with temporary and contract workers the main ones to lose out. The move comes just eight months after Bombardier cut almost 400 jobs in Belfast.
A spokeperson for Bombardier said: “We deeply regret the impact this will have on all those affected and their families. Bombardier remains committed to the Global 5000 and Global 6000 products, and its long-term outlook for the business aircraft market – as well as the industry’s – remains strong.”
Most of the job losses will be at the firm’s main global base in Montreal.
Demand for Bombardier’s Global 5000 and Global 6000 planes, luxurious high-speed 12-seaters with a transatlantic range, has been hit by economic woes in key markets including China and Latin America. Sanctions against Russia have also had an impact on Bombardier’s fortunes.
Last week Bombardier reported first-quarter profits were down 13% on 2014. It has been vying to break the Boeing-Airbus duopoly with a new CSeries passenger jet, but sales have been slow before its provisional entry into service next year. That has left business jets as the net earners for its aerospace division, but orders in 2015 have dropped to just 19, less than half the figure at the same point in 2014.
