‘Government has to intervene’: Loss-making Rolls-Royce to slash 4600 jobs

Engineering giant Rolls-Royce is set to cut 4,600 jobs under a plan to save £800m by 2020.

Many of the redundancies are expected to affect middle-manager and back-office positions, among other roles, at the company’s base in Derby.

Announced this morning (June 14), the move is part of a restructuring that will see Rolls-Royce refocus its operations on power systems, civil aerospace and defence.

The company said around one-third of the cuts will be made by the end of 2018.

The restructuring programme is expected to deliver annual savings of £400m, running throughout 2019 to mid-2020.

Chief exec Warren East said in a statement: “Our world-leading technology gives Rolls-Royce the potential to generate significant profitable growth.

“The creation of a more streamlined organisation with pace and simplicity at its heart will enable us to deliver on that promise, generating higher returns while being able to invest for the future.”

Calling the cuts a “a damning indictment” of the Government’s hands-off industrial policy, Derby North MP Chris Williamson said: “Currently we have private shareholders directing the fate of some of Britain’s most premier firms, with total disregard for the economic needs of the country.

“The government has to intervene.”

Rolls-Royce reported a £4.6bn loss in February last year.

In the June following, the firm struck a deal with unions to safeguard 7,000 front-line engineering jobs in the East Midlands for five years. As part of the agreement, Rolls-Royce would also invest in its UK aerospace business.

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