Almost 500 jobs are to go at aircraft manufacturer Bombardier (www.bombardier.com) in Northern Ireland, as the company tries to improve its long-term competitiveness.

Bombardier produces the wings for its new aircraft — the Airbus A220 formerly known as the C Series — in Belfast.

This comes less than a year after the firm fended off a bid by part of the US administration to impose tariffs on sales of the A220, which could have been disastrous for the Belfast operation.

Unite regional secretary Jackie Pollock said: “We have feared for some time that Bombardier might be bringing forward large-scale redundancies, but this news exceeds our worst fears.

“The redundancies in Belfast seem disproportionate compared to other parts of the Bombardier group.

"We seem to be the hardest hit, with about 10% of our workforce going to be made redundant under this announcement.”

Around 1,000 jobs were lost at the Belfast plant in 2016 as part of a global restructuring, and another 375 redundancies were announced last year.

Bombardier Northern Ireland said: “We acknowledge the impact this will have on our workforce and their families, and we continue to explore opportunities to help mitigate the number of compulsory redundancies.

"However, we need to continue to cut costs and improve the efficiency of our operations to help ensure our long-term competitiveness.”