As widely anticipated, Airbus Industries has announced it is to cut 10,000 jobs across Europe over the next four years, following a catalogue of senior managerial failures to manage the company properly.

Job losses and how they will impact on workers based in Germany, France, Spain and the UK have been the focus of a political circus for the last week, as both Germany and France have sought to minimise the impact on their workers – and particularly France ahead of the impending Presidential election.The bottom line now is that France will be worst hit with 4,300 job losses; Germany will see 3,700 jobs go while the UK and Spain will see 1,600 and 400 jobs cut respectively.
Airbus' new management said it would try where possible not to force any compulsory redundancies, but unions have already vowed to fight the cuts.
Airbus Ceo Louis Gallois said the prolonged weakness of the US dollar had made the restructuring necessary, while production delays on the new A380 aircraft had provided the ‘trigger’ for the cutbacks.