(The Toronto Star posted the following article on its website on October 29.)
TORONTO — Bombardier Inc., the world’s biggest maker of passenger rail cars and regional jets, plans to cut executive jobs at its train unit by the middle of next year to boost profit, chief executive officer Paul Tellier says.
“We’ve got to cut the overhead,” Tellier said in an interview at his office in Montreal yesterday. He said too many people at Bombardier’s headquarters work for the train unit and administrative expenses must be addressed “big time.”
Bombardier had about 69,100 employees worldwide as of July 31, including 28,100 in aerospace and 32,600 in the train unit. About 250 people work at the Montreal headquarters.
Tellier said Bombardier is most likely to shut factories in Germany and the U.K. in the coming months. He plans to spend part of next week in Berlin where Bombardier’s European rail operations are based to discuss possible scenarios.
“We have huge unused capacity and we have to address the number of facilities that we have,” Tellier said. “We have to rationalize all over Europe, especially where we have duplication.”
In a separate development yesterday, a consortium made up of Bombardier Transportation and U.S. partner Granite Construction Co. has been awarded $440 million worth of contracts to extend the Las Vegas Resort Corridor Monorail system.