Rolls-Royce to cut 400 airline jobs

Engineering giant Rolls-Royce today announced plans to axe 400 jobs in its airline division because of a short-term downturn in orders which unions warned could lead to 1,000 redundancies.

Engineering giant Rolls-Royce today announced plans to axe 400 jobs in its airline division because of a short-term downturn in orders which unions warned could lead to 1,000 redundancies.

The company said it had no immediate plans for compulsory redundancies but union officials described the job losses as a "big blow".

The firm's airline base in Derby, which employs 4,000 workers, will make cuts in its workforce of around 10% by next April.

Sir Ken Jackson, general secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, said: "The workers have made the company very successful and this is a big blow. We will be pressing extremely hard that any redundancies should be voluntary."

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said it was hoped most workers would leave voluntarily or through retirement.

"The plans only cover the airline division and there are no plans to spread the cutbacks to other areas of the company," said a spokesman.

"This is part of a long-term plan to make airline division more competitive."

Union officials said they feared the job losses could rise to 1,000.

Meanwhile, manufacturing industry continues to show signs of recovery, according to official figures published today.

The Office for National Statistics reported manufacturing output in September up 0.2% on the previous month and 0.5% higher than the same month a year ago.

The less erratic quarterly figures showed a 1% increase on the preceding three months, although it was still down 0.2% on the same period last year.

Overall industrial production was down 0.2% compared to August, but up 0.8% on the year.