Nearly 1,400 employees of Rolls-Royce, the British engineering giant, would lose their jobs as the company follows its major restructuring plan with an aim to cushion the COVID-19 pandemic-related economic impact on Rolls-Royce’s finances.

The job cuts defined in the company‘s restructuring plan would mainly impact the civil aerospace units and central support functions of Rolls-Royce. On November 5, 2020, the engine maker specified that the majority of proposed 1,400 job cuts would be applied for the management roles of the company’s civil aerospace units worldwide. 

Speaking to the local British media, a spokesman of the company said that Rolls-Royce experienced a hard hit from the global pandemic. He claimed that the company was running through “the largest ever” restructuring plan of its civil aerospace business and outlined that the measure of initial 1,400 job cuts is only a part of earlier announced redundancies.

According to the spokesman, the company must continue to further reduce the cost base to “safeguard the future of Rolls-Royce return to break even” and “work towards the target to reach positive cash-flow in the second half of 2021”.

Back in May 2020, Rolls-Royce stated that it expected to cut at least 9,000 jobs from its global workforce of 52,000 employees. In August 2020, the company reported having suffered a pre-tax loss of more than $7 billion in the first half of 2020.