Bombardier’s

Business Strategy

 
 
 

Vocabulary

cut (2)	slash (2)	restructure
affect	confirm	has in store
effort	annual	streamline
lean	lean out	redeploy
profit	quarter	compare
loss	leverage	period (3)
detail	aviation	turn around (2)
asset	core (2)	transaction
series	earning	round (2)
CEO	multiple	announcement
net (2)

 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Thousands of Canadian jobs are being cut by Bombardier as the company restructures.

Rejeshun is for Scott today, with more on Bombardier slashing thousands of jobs.

 

 

That’s right. They’ve confirmed that they’re cutting five-thousand (5,000) jobs over the next twelve (12) to eighteen (18) months.

We know that three-thousand (3,000) of those jobs are going to be in Canada. Of the 3,000, 2,500 are going to be in Quebec, and 500 will be in Ontario, affecting aviation jobs.

Now this will result in about $250 million in annual savings for Bombardier by 2021. The company said that job cuts are part of an effort to further streamline, lean out and simplify Bombardier.

Now, they also said that they will be redeploying engineering teams within the business.

And it comes as they reported their third quarter earnings. They reported a profit of $149 million in the latest quarter. That compares to a loss of a hundred-million in the same period last year.

So they did turn things around in the quarter.

New Caster: All of this, yes as you said in the quarterly report, we’re getting the details of that, the thousands of jobs, and what else are we learning about the restructuring plan and what Bombardier has in store.

New Reporter: So they’ve said that they’re selling what they describe as non-core assets: they’re selling the Q series aircraft business to Longview aviation capital. It’s also selling its business aircraft flight and technical training business to CAE.

Both of these transactions are expected to net Bombardier proceeds of nine-hundred million dollars ($900 million). Now this is just the latest in a series of changes that Bombardier has seen under CEO Alain M. Bellemare.

In July of this year, we saw Airbus take over Bombardier’s prized C series jet program.

So there’s been multiple rounds of job cuts and asset sales in recent years. And Bellemare said this morning that the announcements today were necessary, and the company is in the final stage of leveraging its turnaround plan.

 

 

Questions

1. Bombardier employees are very happy. True or false? Will the job cuts take place in one factory location?

2. Is the company doing this because they don’t like their workers?

3. Will everyone remain in their current positions?

4. Bombardier has made a comeback; they have bounced back. Is this right or wrong?

5. Has the company “slimmed down”? How has it slimmed down?

6. Is Bombardier’s CEO new?

7. Are layoffs (job cuts) a new and recent development?

 

A. What is the goal of Bombardier? What is it trying to achieve?

B. Does this sound familiar? Is it unique to Bombardier or is this a universal business practice?

C. What should the laid off workers do? What should remaining employees do?

D. What might happen in the future?

E. Should people and the government do anything?