Home of the Hawk sheds 212 jobs

Simon Bristow

MORE than 200 jobs are to be axed at a Yorkshire aircraft factory which specialised in making Hawk trainer jets, two months after the company agreed a multi-million-pound deal to build them in India.

A total of 212 workers at the BAE Systems plant in Brough, near Hull, traditionally known as the Home of the Hawk, are facing redundancy because of a fall in the manufacturing workload, predominantly on the Hawk programme.

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The losses were among nearly 750 announced yesterday in the company’s Military Air Solutions business, and follow a further 206 in its Integrated System Technologies division, which will go next year.

The Unite union said the news was devastating for workers, their families, and the wider community in East Yorkshire, but pledged to work with the firm to minimise the potential number of cuts over the 90-day consultation period.

The company blamed the losses on the impact of changes to the defence programme announced in December, and said it had to place itself in a competitive position for the outcome of the Government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review, which is already under way.