Shorts' owner loses $600m

Shorts' owner loses $600m

Bombardier is Northern Ireland's largest manufacturing employer

The parent company of Belfast aerospace firm Shorts has announced a major financial restructuring after posting a loss of $600m for the last year.

Bombardier, which is close to completing the sale of Belfast city airport, is also to sell the snowmobile and jet-ski business on which the firm was founded 50 years ago.

The sale is expected to bring in $1.5bn.

Last month, the company announced another 1,200 jobs could go at Shorts because of the continuing downturn in the aerospace industry.

At that time, Northern Ireland Finance Minister Ian Pearson criticised Bombardier for the way it handled the announcement of redundancies at its Belfast operation.

'Difficult situation'

Bombardier said it was laying off 3,000 workers at its plants in Montreal and Toronto in Canada, as well as in Northern Ireland.

About 600 workers are likely to lose their jobs by June.

Any jobs to be saved will be from the second round of redundancies which will come after June.

Mr Pearson said a difficult situation should have been handled more sensitively and he said he intended to raise the matter with the company's vice president, Michael Ryan.

Finance Minister Ian Pearson criticised Bombardier

A company spokesman in Belfast said a total of 1,180 jobs were at risk in Belfast over the next year.

Bombardier is Northern Ireland's largest manufacturing employer, with about 6,000 workers involved in the design and production of aircraft structures and engine covers.

The company, one of Canada's leading industrial groups, is the world's third largest civil aviation manufacturer and a leading maker of regional jets.

Shorts is a division of Bombardier Aerospace which took over the company when it was privatised 10 years ago.

In September last year, Bombardier cut nearly 2,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, at its aerospace division.

The whole aerospace industry has been struggling since the terror attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September, 2001.

Bombardier is also the world's largest maker of passenger train equipment.