03/29/2024

Wales News Online

Local & National News for Wales

Airbus job losses announcement is “devastating news” says First Minister

AIRBUS has announced that the company intends to cut 15,000 jobs worldwide as it deals with the effects of the coronavirus crisis. The announcement comes as the aviation industry is expected to shrink significantly in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. It is expected that 1,700 UK Airbus employees will be included in that total.

The UK losses are expected to be at Broughton, in Flintshire, and Filton, in Bristol. The company expects to make the cuts by summer 2021 but hopes the majority of redundancies will be voluntary or through the early retirement of staff.

At the end of April, the aerospace giant announced it was furloughing 3,200 staff at its north Wales site, with the company’s Chief Executive Guillaume Fury warning that the company was “bleeding cash at an unprecedented speed”.

Airbus said then that about half of the staff at its Broughton site would be placed on the UK government’s job retention scheme, which pays 80% of wages.

The details of the job losses and how they will break down between the two giant factories will be revealed later this week after talks with unions.

First Minister Mark Drakeford tweeted: “Devastating news for all of the staff at Airbus, their families and the local community.

“The Welsh Government will use all of the levers at our disposal to support the workers through this difficult time.”

Economy, Transport, and North Wales minister, Ken Skates said a “huge number” of workers would be extremely worried by the announcement and that he would provide more detail of the Welsh Government’s response on Wednesday.

Ken Skates added:

“The sector is in crisis and the UK government needs to take swift and decisive action now to save the industry and its supply chain.

“The alarm bells have been sounding for weeks and we need urgent steps at a UK level to prevent this crisis from becoming even worse.”

Llyr Gruffydd MS for North Wales has warned that two-thirds of the 1,700 job losses could be in Broughton and that workers had told him that they expected to possibly lose 1,100 jobs.

He added that Airbus in Broughton supported another three local jobs for everyone at the factory and that “We are talking about 25,000 dependent on Airbus in Broughton for their work.”

Simon Hart MP, UK government’s Welsh Secretary commented that coronavirus continued to “generate huge challenges for businesses.”

Adding “I have spoken to Airbus this week and will continue to work closely with the company, the trade unions, and the Welsh Government to do everything we can to support employees and those affected in the wider supply chain.”

 

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