Hoping to ride out the storm

Bombardier Aerospace is offering a ray of light amid employment turbulence in Canada's aerospace industry, even as it lays off more than 1,300 workers.

The Montreal-based plane manufacturer expects to hire hundreds of people this year to work on the development of two aircraft: the new mid-sized CSeries jet and the Learjet 85.

The CSeries will be looking to add 175 people to the 850 hired mostly last year. They include non-unionized customer support, engineering operations and design engineering. Thousands of union assembly workers, painters and other shop floor workers will be added starting the end of next year ahead of the aircraft's projected delivery in 2013.

Much of Canada's manufacturing economy is in shambles, with restructuring and plant closures hammering the automotive, forestry and steel industries. But there's hope that growth in other sectors — from health care and social services to agriculture, engineering and aerospace — will help slow down the escalating job losses that have dragged the economy into recession.

On Friday, Statistics Canada is set to report a likely jump in the current 7.2 per cent jobless rate for February, after 213,000 lost jobs since November that pushed the unemployment up a full percentage point. Many economists predict Canada's jobless rate could approach nine per cent before a recovery expected next year.

While the economy has lost jobs in construction, manufacturing, forestry, resources and transportation, there's been hiring in selected areas, including 31,000 new jobs added in health care and social services in January.

Global talent pool

At Bombardier, Canada's biggest aircraft maker, managers of the CSeries program feel "very privileged" in being able to employ talented workers from within Canada and abroad, said Fannie Jacques, the program's human resources director.

"In a difficult market, you've got to have a good product to sell because people have a tendency to be a bit more careful before they jump to a new opportunity and new challenge," she said in an interview.

'This is a great moment to go and visit trades schools and understand what are the potential opportunities.' —Fannie Jacques, Bombardier

Most of the university-educated hires are expected to come from Montreal, including many who work at other companies within the aerospace sector. The world's third-largest airplane builder has received online applications from people outside North America in Europe and South America and will look globally if required talent can't be easily located.

"When we're bringing talent from outside the country that's clearly because we have been unsuccessful in identifying similar talent in the Canadian or North American markets and they are coming with aerospace expertise from aerospace clusters around the world," Jacques added.

At the CSeries' peak production in 2017, Bombardier is expected to employ 3,500 people, mostly on the shop floor. Starting in about 18 months, most of those hired will come from within the Bombardier group or from trade schools.

"For young people who are considering or looking at making a choice for their career, this is a great moment to go and visit trades schools and understand what are the potential opportunities," she said.

Montreal-area layoffs

That's little comfort to the thousands of Montreal area workers who have started to be laid off in recent weeks as aerospace companies adjust to the economic downturn.

Bell Helicopters has laid off 500 workers for three months. Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney added another 1,000 job cuts around the world, although the number in Canada won't be known for a couple of weeks.

A recent $329.9-million military contract from the federal government will allow pilot training giant CAE Inc. to preserve about 330 jobs for three years and create 50 more for 20 years at CFB Trenton in eastern Ontario.

Like many companies, CAE is carefully reviewing about 100 position vacancies and is assessing whether layoffs will be required.

"We think we will be able to weather that storm up to a point but nobody can predict what's going to happen in the world these days," said spokeswoman Nathalie Bourque.

Although the combined layoffs are painful to the 2,000 affected workers, they affect only about four to five per cent of the 48,000 people employed by Quebec's aerospace sector, the centre of the industry in Canada.

Layoffs following the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, which battered airline travel and the aircraft industry, totalled 10 per cent of the aerospace workforce.

Companies still investing

"There's still life out there for a job in aerospace," said Serge Tremblay, executive director of the Centre for Aerospace Manpower Activities in Quebec.

About 5,600 new people were employed in the province's aerospace sector last year because of turnover, retirements and new business.

That's expected to slow considerably this year. But companies are still investing hundreds of millions in R&D and plant expansions that will support long-term growth.

Air travel is expected to grow by more than five per cent next year and emerging countries are slated to order hundreds of new planes.

"The planets are well aligned for the recovery and we're not decreasing at a major pace," added Tremblay, who said he hopes the industry will finish the year with the same number of employees.

The centre is in discussion with several Montreal engineering schools to add an embedded systems engineering degree to its program starting in September.

Hot jobs are expected to be aircraft maintenance, avionics and general aerospace manufacturing.

Michel Legault of Bell Helicopters said the company hopes to recall workers as it wins back contracts and increases production capacity this summer.

The division of Textron Inc., a big U.S. industrial company, has no plans to hire more people except to replace those who leave for retirement and attrition.

But he hopes young people won't get discouraged about attending trade schools when they read about temporary industry layoffs.

"The last time we had that was in 2001 and it emptied the schools for about four to five years so that was very hurtful to us," he said in an interview.

A recovery in the aerospace sector could begin within months, culminating in hiring when students finish their studies.