By Tim Hepher
PARIS (Reuters) -Airbus is cutting just over 2,000 Defense and Space jobs, or 6% of its second-largest division, including hundreds of management positions, as it moves away from an original target of up to 2,500 cuts. of jobs, said two people familiar with the situation. matter said Wednesday.
More than half of the 2,043 total job cuts, affecting 1,128 positions, will fall to the troubled Space Systems business following huge losses, they told Reuters, asking not to be identified.
An Airbus spokesman declined to comment on the figures provided to unions during the first of two days of briefings.
Airbus in October announced plans to cut up to 2,500 Defense and Space jobs, or 7% of the workforce, after €1.5 billion of writedowns in its satellite business led by the troubled OneSat program.
Europe's largest aerospace group has said it aims to carry out the cuts by mid-2026, but will postpone immediate restructuring work pending detailed talks with unions.
In plans presented to unions on Wednesday, Airbus also presented 250 job cuts at its Air Power or fighter aircraft subdivision and 47 at Connected Intelligence, the sources said. The division headquarters will eliminate 618 positions, they added.
Germany will bear the brunt of the overall cuts with 689 positions affected, followed by France with 540, Britain with 477, Spain with 303 and other non-core nations with 34.
The four nations founded Airbus more than 50 years ago and the extent of any cost reduction is a politically sensitive issue.
The governments of the four host nations have been informed of the cuts, which are part of a reorganization plan called Proton.
Airbus builds satellites and transporters and has key shares in European missile, fighter and space launch programs.
The job cuts follow a more than year-long efficiency review at Defense and Space and point to its high overhead and fixed costs by focusing primarily on administrative and administrative rather than operational positions, the sources said.
Europe's major satellite manufacturers have traditionally focused on complex spacecraft in geostationary orbit, but have been hit by the arrival of small, cheap satellites in low Earth orbit.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Airbus, Such (EPA:) and Leonardo were also exploring plans codenamed “Project Bromo” to establish a new European company pooling satellite activities to help compete with Elon Musk's Starlink.
(1 dollar = 0.9489 euros)
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