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Airbus CEO can't guarantee no compulsory layoffs as firms needs to cut 15,000 jobs

Guillaume Faury, chief executive officer of commercial aircraft at Airbus SE, delivers a speech following the unveiling of the new Airbus A220 single-aisle aircraft in Toulouse, France, on Tuesday, July 10, 2018. Photo: Christophe Morin/Bloomberg
Guillaume Faury, chief executive officer of commercial aircraft at Airbus SE. Photo: Christophe Morin/Bloomberg

The boss of European planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) told French radio station RTL that it cannot guarantee that it will not resort to compulsory redundancies as it needs to shed 15,000 jobs across the world.

“The crisis is existential. Our life as a business is potentially at risk if we don’t take the right measures. We are taking them,” Faury said to RTL.

“The situation is so serious, and we are faced with so much uncertainty, that I think no one can guarantee there won’t be compulsory redundancies if we’re to adapt to the situation, especially if it evolves further.

“On the other hand, what I say clearly is that we have a lot of work to do, we will do everything we can to avoid arriving at that point. There are lots of measures we can take between voluntary redundancies and compulsory redundancies.”

In June this year, Airbus announced that it would cut 15,000 jobs within a year as the COVID-19 pandemic brought air travel to a standstill.

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At the time, Francoise Vallin of the CFE-CGC union said “it's going to be a mighty battle to save jobs.”

Airbus revealed that it was likely to cut 5,000 posts in France, 5,100 in Germany, 900 in Spain, 1,700 in the UK, and 1,300 elsewhere by mid-2021, for a core total of 14,000.

The broader tally includes another 900 job cuts planned before the crisis at its Premium AEROTEC unit in Germany.

At the end of June, Faury said that he expects production at the European aircraft manufacturer to be down by 40% this year and next year. In April, Faury told employees in a memo seen by media outlets including Reuters and Bloomberg that the company is “bleeding cash” and needs to rapidly cut costs in order to survive the impact from the coronavirus pandemic.