Shorts to lay off 160 workers in Belfast

Around 160 workers at Belfast aerospace company Shorts will be made redundant next month, the company announced today.

Around 160 workers at Belfast aerospace company Shorts will be made redundant next month, the company announced today.

They will be forced to go after the company only managed to find 260 members of the workforce who were willing to apply for voluntary redundancy or who left as a result of natural turnover.

A further 120 workers face being made redundant later in the year.

The company's Canadian parent, Bombardier announced last October that the Belfast workforce would have to be cut this year by 645 together with another 685 going at its plants in Canada.

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Bombardier insisted the redundancies - the latest in a series over recent years - were unconnected with the creation of 1,200 jobs in Mexico but were because of a slow-down in orders for its range of regional jets.

Demand for the company's business jets and its regional turboprops remained strong, however. Belfast plays a major role in the construction of both.