European aerospace and defence firm EADS has announced a restructuring plan for its future Airbus Defence and Space division (Airbus DS) that will see 5,800 jobs cut through to the end of 2016.
The announcement follows a decision by the company’s board of directors in July this year to consolidate the defence and space businesses of the Group into one new Division and to rebrand EADS into “Airbus Group”.
“We need to improve our competitiveness in defence and space – and we need to do it now,” said EADS CEO Tom Enders. “With our traditional markets down, we urgently need to improve access to international customers, to growth markets. For that to work, we need to cut costs, eliminate product and resource overlaps, create synergies in our operations and product portfolio and better focus our Research and Development efforts. That’s what the restructuring and integration plan for our defence and space business is all about.”
The Airbus DS division is slated to be operational by mid-2014.
