Engineering news
Rolls-Royce has confirmed that it is to cut hundreds of UK jobs under previously announced plans to reduce its global workforce by 2,600 over the next 18 months.
Derby will bear the brunt of the cuts, with plans for around 300 job losses from the firm's aerospace business.
Rolls-Royce said the restructuring of its turbine business would lead to the possible closure of a site in Derby and one at Ansty in Warwickshire.
Jobs are also set to go at factories at Inchinnan near Glasgow, Barnoldswick in Lancashire and Hucknall in Nottinghamshire.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman said: "As part of this restructuring process we're looking to make the best use of all our facilities and we are proposing to consolidate our turbine machining operations, subject to consultation and a detailed feasibility assessment. These proposals would involve consolidating our low-volume part production, maximising our supply chain and transferring complex machining operations into our modern turbine blade facility in Derby.
"With this and the advanced airfoil machining facility in Crosspointe, Virginia, we are able to utilise our newer, cost-competitive facilities. If our assessment validates our approach, this would result in the closure of our turbine blade machining facility at Ansty and the precision machining facility (PMF) in Derby during 2017. This would lead to a reduction of approximately 340 roles.
"We also need to balance our workforce to the size of the workload we have in our internal supply chain facilities. As a result of reduced workload, we are proposing a reduction of 240 roles in the UK and Germany.
The company stressed that the job losses are part of the 2,600 already announced.
Unite regional officer Tony Tinley said: "These cuts are a huge loss of skills to the UK economy and will result in Rolls-Royce outsourcing high-tech manufacturing jobs overseas to plug the skills gap in the future."
He added: "There is a real danger that Rolls-Royce is making decisions in the short-term which it will later regret and it needs to give a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies."
Earlier this week, Rolls-Royce told the Derby Telegraph that it is possible that staff facing redundancy in its aerospace division in Derby could be found work at its submarines business in the city.