bombardier announces cuts

Reuters news service reports that Ski-Doo's parent company, Bombardier Inc., the world's third-largest civil aircraft maker, is cutting 3,800 jobs or 10 percent of those in its aerospace sector, and warned another 2,700 employees could be laid off next year.

The Canada-based company also scaled back its aircraft production plans and reported that its profit growth this year would be 15 percent, less than half the rate forecast just a few months ago.

Bombardier cited the Sept. 11 airliner hijackings and attacks in the United States in accounting for the drastic corporate moves.

At Bombardier, which makes regional aircraft and business jets, but is also the world's No. 1 manufacturer of rail equipment, the cuts affect its main Montreal production work force and employees in Toronto, the United States and Belfast, Northern Ireland.

"We are keeping a close watch on the situation as it unfolds," Robert Brown, president and chief executive, said in a statement.

"We are striving, through both our decisions and our actions, to protect the corporation from the shockwaves that are now rocking the markets and to reinforce all our business sectors, in particular the financial services sector."
Bombardier, one of Canada largest and most consistently profitable companies over the past decade, cut its profit forecast for fiscal 2001-2002 to growth of about 15 percent, but sees profit growth of 15 percent in fiscal 2002-2003.

Bombardier's stock has tumbled 45 percent, even though the company continued to rack up more than $3 billion in jet orders.