Bombardier hands out pink slips, as part of effort to cut 7,000 workers

Bombardier handed out pink slips Friday to aerospaceemployees in Montreal as part of its efforts announced in Februaryto trim 7,000 workers over two years.

The Montreal-based company declined to say how many workers werebeing affected by the latest layoff notices, how many cuts havealready been made, or what aircraft programs are being affected.

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Mark Masluch, spokesman for Bombardier business jets, said thelayoffs are a continuation of the "workforce optimization" planbeing implemented across the company.

Bombardier has said that up to 2,000 of the cuts,mainly in Canada and Europe, will be contractors.

Masluch said the company has taken time to ensure it can meet commitments to customers, and to evaluate how many of the job cutscan be mitigated by retirements or other efforts.

The union representing machinists said the uncertainty aboutefforts to save jobs is creating frustration for workers. It warnedlast October that 10,000 Quebec aerospace jobs are at risk.

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Union representative David Chartrand said that despite handingover U.S. $1 billion, the province didn't seek any guarantees toprotect existing workers, while Ottawa helped Air Canada by removingmeasures to protect Quebec maintenance jobs.

The layoffs come as Bombardier continues to press Ottawa for U.S.$1billion in funding.