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Sir John Rose, chief executive of Rolls-Royce, has warned that more UK workers would lose their jobs at the jet-engine maker as it shifts its industrial base to lower-cost, dollar-denominated markets.
"Ninety per cent of our revenue comes from outside the UK, and the manufacturing balance will continue to move that way," Sir John said. "Over time we will increasingly ensure that our supply chain is either dollarised or low-cost so that we can get a hedge against the dollar."
The company admitted on Thursday that the fall in the US dollar, the currency in which its sales are booked, cost it £92 million ($227 million) last year, reducing its annual profit to £800 million.
Sir John did not give specific figures or sites that might be closed, though he argued that the company's record order book, which grew 76 per cent to £45.9 billion last year, meant that the "rebalancing" would be more about opening new sites abroad than shutting factories in Britain.
The news comes just days after the company, one of the biggest manufacturers with more than 20,000 employees in the UK, confirmed the closure of an oil and gas turbine factory in Merseyside. The closure will lead to an estimated 200 lost jobs.
The company is signed up to be the sole provider of engines for Airbus' A350 XWB, its new wide-body aeroplane that is expected to come on the market from 2013.
- Independent
