Belfast escapes 1,000 Bombardier redundancies

Bombardier's Belfast division has escaped a jobs cull that will see the Canadian aerospace group reduce its workforce by 1,000 people in 2015.

The job losses are the result of a decision by the aerospace group to “pause” its Learjet 85 business aircraft program because of weak demand.

Bombardier’s Belfast division designs and manufactures the composite wing skin panels and spar components for the Learjet 85 business jet.

It also designs and manufactures the complete fuselage for the Learjet 70 and the Learjet 75 business jets.

Bombardier has warned that the market for light aircraft has not yet recovered from the economic downturn and because of this the Canadian group will record a pre-tax special charge in the fourth quarter of 2014 of approximately $1.4 billion.

It also plans to axe 1,000 jobs at its sites in Querétaro, Mexico, and Wichita in the United States.

Bombardier’s Belfast operations may have escaped this latest round of job cuts - but it was only last September that the Canadian group cut 300 temporary and contract jobs in the North and 90 positions from its permanent workforce.

Pierre Beaudoin, president and chief executive officer, Bombardier said it constantly monitors its product strategy and development priorities.

“Given the weakness of the market, we made the difficult decision to pause the Learjet 85 program at this time. We will focus our resources on our two other clean-sheet aircraft programmes under development, CSeries and Global 7000/8000, for which we see tremendous market potential. Both programs are progressing well,” he said.

Bombardier’s Belfast division is responsible for the design and manufacture of the advanced composite wings for the CS100 and CS300.

Its Northern Ireland operations also design and manufacture the composite horizontal stabiliser and other components for the Global 7000 and Global 8000 business jets.