Brazil's Embraer says will lay off 20 pct of its workersBrazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer announced Thursday it will lay off 20 percent of its 21,000 workers because of the "unprecedented crisis hitting the world economy." The company, which trails third behind Airbus and Boeing in the world commercial aviation market, earns 90 percent of its revenues from exports. "As a consequence of the unprecedented crisis hitting the world economy, especially the aviation sector, it has become inevitable to revise our cost base and workforce to adapt them to the new reality in the demand for aircraft," Embraer said in a statement. The ax would fall on factory workers, administration staff and managers, it said. The company did not give an exact figure of how many jobs would be cut. The one-in-five proportion given suggested it would be more than 4,000. Nearly half of its earnings come from the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and Canada, which are suffering badly from the abrupt and deep economic downturn Downturn The transition point between a rising, expanding economy to a falling, contracting one. downturn A decline in security prices or economic activity following a period of rising or stable prices or activity. . Embraer's shares slid nearly two percent to 14.50 dollars on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. immediately following the announcement -- less than half what they were fetching fetch·ing adj. Very attractive; charming: a fetching new hairstyle. fetch  ing·ly adv. at their peak last year.
Luiz Hamilton Lima, the newly appointed vice-president in charge of Embraer's commercial aviation for Latin America Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. , told reporters earlier this week that the coming months will be "difficult" for Embraer. In an exchange with AFP (1) (AppleTalk Filing Protocol) The file sharing protocol used in an AppleTalk network. In order for non-Apple networks to access data in an AppleShare server, their protocols must translate into the AFP language. See file sharing protocol. , he had hinted the company was looking at job cuts, but would not be specific. "Embraer is going to take adequate measures," he said. Embraer makes short- and mid-range passenger aircraft, as well as planes for defense and government clients around the world. In 2007, Embraer made 284 million dollars in profit. Its full-year 2008 results are due next month. In the nine months to end-September 2008, the company was showing an 86-million-dollar profit, after the crisis late in the year dealt it a third-quarter 21-million-dollar loss. Fourth-quarter 2008 orders shrank shrank v. A past tense of shrink. shrank Verb a past tense of shrink shrank shrink to 20.9 billion dollars from 21.6 billion dollars in the previous quarter. In its statement, the company revised downwards its delivery forecast in 2009 to 242 commercial aircraft worth 5.5 billion dollars, from 270 previously. Before last November, it had been banking on delivering 320 aircraft. 
|
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion