Bombardier to cut almost 500 Belfast jobs in blow to Northern Ireland economy

Bombardier in Belfast is set to shed more than 10pc of its workforce (Niall Carson/PA)

Margaret Canning

Bombardier in Belfast is set to shed more than 10pc of its workforce with 490 workers at the aerospace manufacturer facing redundancy, it has emerged.

It's understood that further jobs among agency workers and contractors may also be hit, beyond the 490 jobs of full-time, direct employees.

The transport company employs around 70,000 globally and announced two weeks ago that 5,000 jobs would be cut.

Around 4,000 staff work at the company’s Northern Ireland sites.

The Belfast-based operation, formerly known as Shorts, had said it would “take the necessary time to evaluate what this means for our aerostructures and engineering services business”.

“We will communicate with our employees in more detail over the coming weeks.”

At the time of writing, there has been no statement from the company.

Bombardier has faced mounting pressure and had been restructuring operations in Belfast and across the world over recent years. Earlier this year it sold part of its C-Series aircraft to Airbus.