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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowBritish jet engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce said Thursday that it plans to cut 4,600 jobs over the next two years as part of a major restructuring effort.
About 3,000 of the cuts will affect United Kingdom employees, particularly at a site in the English city of Derby. Rolls-Royce currently employs 26,000 people in the U.K., almost half of its total workforce worldwide.
A spokesman for the local operations of Rolls-Royce did not know if any job cuts would be made in Indianapolis, where the company has about 4,000 employees.
The company said Thursday it wants to save $537 million over the next two years to sustain an increase in profits.
Frank-Martin Hein, spokesperson for Rolls-Royce, said that up to 2,000 redundancies could be eliminated this year, and that mostly support and management roles will be cut.
While Rolls-Royce saw a 25 percent rise in profit in 2017, it has issued a series of profit warnings in recent years, and the company is struggling to recoup the costs of long term investments. Since 2010, the company has invested more than $14 billion, a substantial portion of which was devoted to researching and developing a new engine for the Boeing 797.
"These changes will help us deliver over the mid- and longer-term a level of free cash flow well beyond our near-term ambition of around 1 billion pounds by around 2020," said CEO Warren East.
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