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Airbus to fire 2,362 people, over 400 in France

By RFI
France REUTERSRegis Duvignau
FEB 19, 2020 LISTEN
REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

Airbus Defence and Space industries announced in a press release on February 19 that they will lay of over 2300 people. The company says it ran on a loss for three years in a row, blaming the low demand from the space- and defence markets.

A total of 2,362 positions will be cut, 829 in Germany, 357 in the UK, 630 in Spain, 404 in France and 142 in other countries.

Airbus said that "while the underlying business perspectives, especially in the core business, remain solid", job cuts were necessary after the book-to-bill ratio -- the ratio of orders received to amounts billed -- fell below 1 for the third year in a row.

"Airbus Defence and Space will provide updates on its plans and continues a constructive dialogue with employee representatives," it said in a statement.

The Defence and Space division accounts for 15 percent of the group's revenue.

It posted operating losses of 881 million euros in 2019.

Bribery settlement
The announcement comes after Airbus reported a net loss for 2019 on Thursday, following an international bribery settlement and problems with the A400M transport plane.

Airbus is set to pay 3.6 billion € in penalties to regulators in the UK, France and the US to settle a bribery and corruption probe into its use of middle men to win international sales.

“We put a lot behind us in 2019 and especially the end of the compliance investigation and the settlement that has been reached with the U.K. and the U.S. and the French authorities a bit earlier this year,” Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury said at a press conference last week.

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