Shorts plans 250 job cuts
Nearly 250 more jobs are to go at Belfast aerospace company Shorts, trade unions said today.
The job losses will be on top of the 460 jobs which the company announced earlier this month would have to go before the end of the year.
A spokesman for the trade union joint shop stewards at the East Belfast company said the management told them this morning there would need to be a further 239 job cuts, taking the total of job losses to 700.
There was no immediate confirmation from the company, which is Northern Ireland’s largest manufacturing employer. A formal statement was expected later today.
Shorts is owned by the Canadian aerospace company Bombardier, which said recently that workers would need to go because of the depressed world-wide aircraft market caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and the global economic slowdown.
Shorts manufactures large sections of the fuselage of Bombardier’s range of regional jets, and also manufactures aircraft parts for Boeing, which has also suffered the downturn in aircraft orders.
