Montreal-based Bombardier announced in a press release Wednesday that it plans to cut about 7,000 jobs, representing approximately 10 percent of its global workforce, over the next two years. This news comes even as the airplane and train manufacturer signed a deal to sell its CSeries jets to Air Canada after long talks.
The company said that the job cuts will include production and non-production employees with 2,000 of the positions being contractors. Furthermore, 3,200 job cuts will occur in its transportation segment, while 2,500 will be in its aerostructures and engineering segment, reported ABC News. The final 1,300 job cuts will come from its aerospace and business and aircraft segment, 800 and 500 respectively.
Bombardier has been modifying production rates for a variety of its aircraft due to macroeconomic conditions, prompting it to adapt its workforce to meet market demand. In addition, major aerospace development programs and projects aimed at transportation have dwindled - as it had forecast, leaving Bombardier to resize manpower to match future workloads.
In the meantime, the train and plane manufacturer announced that it and Canada Air has solidified a $3.8 billion deal that would see the sale of 45 CS300 aircrafts to the Canadian airliner, according to USA Today.
Bombardier also released its fourth-quarter and yearly results, showing that its 2015 revenue was $18.2 billion - down from $20.1 billion in 2014 - while Q4 revenue was $5 billion, down from $6 billion from just a year before.
Despite the revenue loss, Bombardier was still optimistic and said it is in a position that will allow it to increase earnings power and cash flow generation to make Bombardier stronger.
"Bombardier is in a better place today and we are on the path to greater profitability. We are engaged in a rigorous process that will increase our earnings power and cash flow generation over the next five years," said Bombardier president and CEO Alain Bellemare in a statement. "We now have a clear plan in place and are applying disciplined execution to make Bombardier stronger."
