Bombardier cutting another 7,500 jobs
Aerospace giant announced 7,000 job cuts at the start of this year
MONTREAL — Bombardier said it plans to eliminate 7,500 positions — more than 10 per cent of its global workforce — through the end of 2018, the company’s second mass round of layoffs in less than a year.
About 2,000 positions will be cut across Canada, including 1,500 in Quebec, the Montrealbased aerospace giant said Friday. Two-thirds of all the job losses will come from Bombardier’s transportation division mainly in Europe, with the rest from its aerospace operations.
“I know these aren’t easy decisions in the short term,” said CEO Alain Bellemare. “But they are the right decisions to ensure the future of the company.”
In February, Bombardier announced plans to cut 7,000 positions by the end of next year as it struggled to sell its signature CSeries passenger jet in the face of growing competition from rivals abroad.
Bombardier said the latest round of job cuts is intended to save about US$300 million a year and is part of its recovery plan launched last year to improve profitability and competitiveness by 2020.
Bellemare said the measure will enable Bombardier to continue investing in its operations and secure more rail and plane work. The job losses will be partly offset by more than 3,700 new hires as it ramps up production of the CSeries plane and new Global 7000 business aircraft, as well as building railcars for customers in Toronto and elsewhere, he added.
He said the new jobs will be created in countries where labour costs are lower but also within Bombardier’s existing network of operations.
A union representing Bombardier workers in Montreal said it can’t keep up with the job losses since those announced in February haven’t been completed.
“It creates a lousy work environment,” said David Chartrand, Quebec representative for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
The announcement comes as Bombardier’s hand remains extended for federal help, about a year after it asked Ottawa for a US$1-billion investment.
Bombardier is making a business decision and that won’t affect negotiations about that appeal for aid it is having with the federal government, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said.
In Ottawa, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said the federal government is focused on how to provide funding that meets its conditions to keep Bombardier’s head office in Canada and preserve future jobs and investments in research and development.
“We very much want to be part of the solution but we have to find and make sure we have the conditions for growth,” he said.
Bombardier has received a US$1-billion investment in the CSeries jet from the Quebec government and sold a 30 per cent stake in Bombardier Transportation to Quebec’s pension fund manager, the Caisse de dépôt.