Union urges Rolls Royce to ‘hold firm’ on making job cuts

However, the country's leading manufacturing union, Unite, has called for the company to ’hold firm' and avoid short-term action which could hamper its emergence from the Covid-19 crisis.

The union is urging Rolls and other manufacturing companies to avoid ‘knee-jerk' reactions and instead work with Unite and the government to develop an industrial strategy that will develop and deliver jobs .

Steve Turner, Unite assistant general secretary for manufacturing, said: "We say to Rolls- Royce today, step back from drastic, short-term responses and work with us to shape a positive future for a world class business, our highly skilled workforce and our communities.

“Help us to deliver a government led industrial strategy to build our way out of this crisis and meet the challenges of the future.

“These are unprecedented times. We understand the challenges to our industries from Covid-19 and the impact of government measures to protect public health on both the immediate and longer-term outlook for manufacturing as well as the wider economy.

"However, at a time when we are working hard to protect jobs and businesses through this pandemic with pay protection, government loans and other industry specific packages backed by the Bank of England, right now we are asking Rolls-Royce, along with others across manufacturing, to hold firm and defer from short-term reactions that will both damage the economy and undermine our ability to emerge from this with job security and consumer confidence intact.

"Our economy is changing and our manufacturing sector has to be in a fit shape to rise to these challenges.”

A Rolls-Royce spokesman said the pandemic was "unprecedented", adding: "We have taken swift action to increase our liquidity, dramatically reduce our spending in 2020, and strengthen our resilience in these exceptionally challenging times.

"But we will need to take further action. We have promised to give our people further details of the impact of the current situation on the size of our workforce before the end of this month."