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Airbus Extends U.K., Spain Job Furloughs Ahead of Permanent Cuts

Airbus Extends U.K., Spain Job Furloughs Ahead of Permanent Cuts

Airbus SE is extending furlough programs for 5,300 employees in the U.K. and Spain to give the European planemaker more time to consider permanent job cuts.

About 2,200 workers at Airbus’s wing plant in the Welsh city of Broughton will go on leave for three weeks from July 20, according to a company spokesperson. That’s after the last staff from an earlier wave are due back on July 1.

In Spain, Airbus has agreed with unions to keep 3,100 staff on partial unemployment until the end of September, a second spokesperson for the planemaker said. All commercial aerospace staff in France are now on furlough, he added, with around 29,500 employees working on average about 30% shorter weeks.

The company has also furloughed employees in Germany, where it employs more than 46,000 people, or around 34% of its global workforce.

The juggling, made possible by government programs, has allowed Airbus to buy time before making a decision on permanent retrenchments in the wake of the coronavirus downturn. With the slump in global travel eroding demand for new aircraft, Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury has said the company must “act fast” on jobs and is expected to make an announcement on retrenchments by the end of next month.

Airbus, like many companies in the aviation industry, is trying to balance protecting jobs with ensuring it has enough cash flow to get through the downturn. The manufacturer slashed its production rate by more than one-third and is now looking to downsize to reflect the lower level of demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

A meeting with union representatives was due to take place in mid-June but was postponed when Airbus was granted government support in France and Germany.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.