Airbus confirms 10,000 European job cuts

Airbus today confirmed that it plans to shed about 10,000 European jobs as part of a long-awaited restructuring plan, union officials said.

The European planemaker briefed unions on plans to sell part or all of its Meaulte and Saint-Nazaire-Ville sites in France as well as Germany’s Nordenham and Varel facilities and Filton in the UK, France’s Force Ouvriere and CGT unions both said.

A third German site in Laupheim could also be sold, CGT official Xavier Petrachi said.

A spokesman for Airbus parent company EADS declined to comment on the restructuring plan, which was scheduled to be presented at an afternoon news conference in Toulouse.

Airbus is seeking investors to run some of the sites as suppliers to Airbus jet programmes, said a person close to the company, who asked not to be named because the plan had yet to be announced.

Approximately 4,300 of the job cuts to be made in France, 3,900 in Germany, 1,000-1,500 in Britain and 500 in Spain, the person said. Airbus currently employs about 56,000 people.