Month after saying jobs were safe, firm axes 30

One of Perth's biggest employers, Vector Aerospace Component Services, yesterday announced plans to axe a tenth of its workforce.

The former Defence Aviation Repair Agency at Almondbank is to shed 30 jobs from its 300-strong workforce only a month after bosses at the helicopter repair facility announced that a raft of new follow-on contracts had secured the future of under-threat jobs.

Roseanna Cunningham, the MSP for Perth, and Pete Wishart, the MP for Perth and North Perthshire, expressed "anger and disappointment" at the restructuring announcement. And the two SNP politicians will be holding emergency talks tomorrow with Ian Burnett, the director at the plant.

Ms Cunningham said: "First and foremost, I am concerned for the 30 people who face losing their jobs, and I hope that every effort will be made by Vector to assist them in securing alternative employment.

"I am disappointed and extremely angry about today's announcement from Vector," she added. "It is almost exactly a month since they issued a release welcoming a number of follow-on contracts that ensured threatened jobs were now secure, and only a fortnight before that Mr Burnett had given me an assurance that any concerns about job losses at Almondbank were unfounded speculation."

Mr Wishart said: "I am dismayed at the mixed messages that we are being given by management. The recession is clearly biting hard in all sectors, but I fear that selling off Almondbank is going to prove to have been a very costly mistake indeed.

"Those of my constituents who have lost their jobs can be certain that I will have some tough questions for Mr Burnett."

A Vector Aerospace spokesman said the company's restructuring programme which would "strengthen its ability to compete in the challenging defence sector environment in which the business operates".