Airbus has announced that its defense and space division prepares to cut 2,362 jobs by the end of 2021, due to “a flat space market and postponed contracts on the defense side”.
In a statement, the aircraft maker stated its defense and space unit has entered the consultation process with the firm’s European works council on the division’s planned restructuring.
It said that such these steps are required following “the division achieved a book-to-bill ratio below 1 for three years in a row”.
The plan oversee the decline of 829 posts in Germany, 357 in Britain, 630 in Spain, 404 in France and 141 in other nations, according to the statement.
“These efforts will be supported by a reinforced profitability program and further measures to boost long-term competitiveness and safeguard the division’s future positioning,” Airbus stated.
In 2019, the firm reported a net loss of 1.36 billion euros (1.46 billion U.S. dollars) mostly because of a provision of 3.6 billion euros to cover the settlement of a suspected jet sales corruption case dating back more than a decade ago.
It also attributed the poor performance to an “increasingly challenging” result of its A400M military transport aircraft, which had resulted in a loss of 1.2 billion euros.
On the other hand, the suspension of defense export licences to Saudi Arabia by the German government, prolonged to March 2020, had cost the firm 221 million euros ($239 million).
