Coronavirus: Rolls-Royce to cut 9,000 jobs as Airline Industry Faces Collapse

AS American plane manufacturer Boeing announced order cancellations and French Rival Airbus cuts back on production Rolls Royce has been badly affected by the drop in orders for its engines.

Derby-based Rolls-Royce, which employs 52,000 staff globally, said the job losses would be felt worst in its civil aerospace business, with most of the staff being made redundant coming from that division. The company also makes fighter jet, ship, and submarine engines but it said there would be no job losses at its defence businesses.

Rolls-Royce, the British manufacturer of engines for the aerospace industry, will lay off at least 9,000 employees worldwide, just over 17 per cent of its workforce and is considering cutting costs at some plants. The decision, announced this Wednesday by the firm, is due to the difficulties facing the commercial aviation sector due to the Covid-19 crisis.

In addition to the cost savings generated by this downsizing, which the company puts at around £700m (€782m) annually, Rolls-Royce will cut its investments and make indirect cost adjustments in other areas, thereby it hopes to raise annual savings to a total of more than £1.3bn (€1,452m).

For its part, the costs related to the restructuring proposed by the company will probably be around £800 million (€894 million), which will be accounted for between the years 2020 and 2022.