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2008 Issues Archive
26 November 2008
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Jobs slashed at BAE Systems
Thousands of jobs are to be slashed at two of the UK’s biggest employers of engineers, Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems.
Rolls-Royce said that up to 2,000 jobs would be affected next year, blaming the cuts on delays in development programmes for aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Bernie Hamilton, national officer at the union Unite, described the announcement as “bitterly disappointing”.
“Rolls-Royce must take a measured approach to this temporary downturn in the airline industry. In the past the company has cut too many jobs and struggled to meet the upturn in the market,” he said.
Rolls-Royce said that it was continuing with commitments to apprentice and graduate recruitment.
Meanwhile BAE is to cut 200 engineering jobs from its Land Systems business, affecting sites at Newcastle, Leeds, Leicester, Barrow and Telford.
BAE said: “This is a decision whose roots go back before the downturn, and is about matching workload with resources.” The company added that the decision was partly due to delays and cutbacks to the £16 billion FRES armoured vehicle project.
Andrew Ramsay, chief executive of the Engineering Council (UK), said that the downturn gave employers an opportunity “to take a view on which bits of their business are most profitable”.
He continued: “They can lose staff in the areas that are less profitable, simply because they are less likely to be blamed when they do that. In times of high employment it can make the employer seem as if it’s not doing too well.”
Tony Hammond, national negotiating officer at the trade union Prospect, described BAE’s decision as “disappointing but not unexpected”.
He added: “For the last year we’ve been pushing the government to accept a business plan that enables UK manufacture of general-purpose vehicles.”
It is understood that many believe GKN will be tasked with manufacturing vehicles for FRES, so that production won’t take place in the UK.
An industry insider said: “What BAE has done is to hold on to senior engineers on the design team for as long as it can, but it has got to the point where it has to start releasing people. There could be announcement of closure of one of the sites before the end of the year.”
BAE Systems said that an upturn at Land Systems “doesn’t look likely”.
Philip Whiteman, chief executive of Semta, the sector skills council for engineering, said his organisation would do its “utmost to support” firms during the downturn.
He added: “Employers are still concerned about skills requirements. Some are struggling to hire people with the right qualifications and experience, can’t find apprentices with the right aptitudes, or are planning now for the skills to support future environmental technologies.”
Semta forecasts that the engineering sector in the UK will still require 30,000 new employees each year until 2014.
© PE Publishing, 26 November 2008
