NI 'Reeling' As Bombardier Cuts 1,000 Jobs

Jobs at the Belfast factories of plane-maker Bombardier may be at risk.

The company has announced today that it is cutting aircraft production rates and reducing manpower throughout all its sites, and a statement from the east Belfast facility notes, "we regret to confirm that 310 Bombardier employee jobs are at risk in Northern Ireland".

Stormont First Minister and MP and MLA for East Belfast Peter Robinson said Northern Ireland was "reeling from a massive blow" after a week of job losses.

He was commenting as the latest knock-out blow was revealed by Bombardier.

It is now to lodge a formal 'HR1' redundancy notice with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment shortly, following which there will be a 90-day consultation period with our trade unions to explore any means to mitigate the number of potential job losses.

However, the company expects that these employees will leave through voluntary means and will have to "also let go" the remainder of its temporary subcontractors - comprising 665 people.

This is in addition to the announcement in early February that 300 subcontractors' jobs would be lost.

A spokesperson for Bombardier in Belfast said: "We deeply regret the impact this will have on those affected and their families.

"Unfortunately, however, the force of this global recession is unprecedented, market conditions have worsened, and Bombardier is revising downwards most of its aircraft production rates and implementing measures to meet challenges facing the whole aviation industry.

"We need to do all we can to protect the business now so that when we come out of the recession we will be in a strong position," the statement continued.

However, Bombardier produced strong results for the past year and the company is said to be continuing to invest in the future, in new programmes like the CSeries where the total investment in Belfast is in excess of £500 million, including a new factory and equipment.

It has been a black week for Northern Ireland's manufacturing sector with 95 workers made redundant at the engineering firm FG Wilson on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, 210 people were laid off as car parts company Visteon closed its Belfast plant and just the day before, on Monday, 87 jobs went at Nortel in Co Antrim.

Following today's news, the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has warned of "concern at the haemorrhaging of jobs from the manufacturing sector in Northern Ireland".

Peter Bunting, Assistant General Secretary, said: "This announcement, added to the redundancies in Visteon, Nortel and FG Wilson, bring the total job losses for this week to almost 1,600.

"It is now critical that our Executive address the crises facing our manufacturing sector and introduce some measures which will alleviate the hardship of the families affected and also ensure that the skills of those workers who have been made redundant are not lost to the economy," he said.

"Some of the employers who have announced redundancies this week have treated their employees in a shameful manner and it is now time for the Northern Ireland Executive and the Department for Employment and Learning to take urgent action to establish a Workers' Protection Fund, he insisted.

"They should also examine closely what use can be made of the European Globalisation Fund which has been established by the European Commission to assist workers facing redundancy," he commented.

(BMcC/JM)