Canadian aircraft and transport company Bombardier Inc plans to cut 5,000 jobs globally and sell off its aging turboprop line in a bid to “streamline” operations, the struggling firm said on Thursday.
The 7 percent reduction of its workforce across the organization would occur over the next 12 to 18 months, while key aerospace engineering team members would be redeployed to its booming business jet segment, it said.
The cuts would be concentrated in the aerospace business, affecting 3,000 workers in Canada, company spokesman Simon Letendre said.
Bombardier has had to slash more than 15,000 jobs in its aerospace and rail divisions around the world since 2015.
The Montreal-based group also announced the sale of “non-core assets” totaling about US$900 million, including the Q Series medium range turboprop aircraft program and the De Havilland trademark, which was sold for about US$300 million to a Canadian investment fund.
Flight simulator and training firm CAE Inc, meanwhile, has agreed to pick up Bombardier’s business aircraft flight training segment, which is forecast to generate royalties of US$800 million.
The restructuring announcement came as the company reported net income of US$167 million in the third quarter, compared with a loss of US$11 million a year earlier.
“We continue to make solid progress executing our turnaround plan,” Bombardier chief executive officer Alain Bellemare said of the restructuring effort.
“We have set in motion the next round of actions necessary to unleash the full potential of the Bombardier portfolio,” he said in a statement, adding that the firm “will continue to be proactive in focusing and streamlining the organization.”
“We’re going through a major turnaround, and by and large, if you look at what we’ve done so far we positioned the company very well for the next phase,” Bellemare told analysts in a conference call.
However, Renaud Gagne of Unifor, the union representing Canadian aerospace workers, said that the layoffs “send a worrisome message for the future of the industry.”
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