Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA to Cut 2,500

When it comes to the cuts in the airline industry it seems like every airline, big and small, is making cuts in order to stay afloat. Today we are going to take a look at the cuts to Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA. While Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA may not exactly be a household name here in the USA, in Brazil the company is fairly large. As a matter of fact they can boast being the nations second largest airline. Sadly however this means that the company is going to be making some very large layoffs.

The company has announced the layoff of about 2,500 workers in the very near future. While the company has not laid out a clear plan at the moment, the number is a firm one, not an estimate that comes directly from the mouth of the CFO for the company. The company has not given a hard date for all of the layoffs, but they have said that all of the jobs will be gone by the end of the year, which means that in the best case scenario the company has given workers about six months to find new jobs, though it could be significantly less if the company enacts the layoffs before the end of the year.

Give that the company only employs about 20,500 workers in total this loss of 2,500 represents a loss of slightly more than ten percent of the overall number of workers for the company. While that would be a significant decrease to adjust to for a company in any industry, in the airline industry it also means cutting the number of jets in service and the number of flights that the company can run on any given day.

The company is hoping that all of the jobs will not have to come via layoffs. There is a strong push towards attrition under this new plan, as well as a full freeze on hiring. The company is doing all of this to get out of the red. They have been on a downward slide for some time now.

Of course, this is not the only airline to be dealing with a decrease in customers and an increase in the costs of everything from fuel to basic supplies by cutting back on jobs. Airlines in many countries have been feeling the pinch and cutting back on staff in order to make ends meet. For those of you who do not remember our earlier coverage of job cuts to Air France here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in not time at all, “Air France has just put out a plan to help themselves with their fiscal problems, and that plan involved the loss of about 5,000 jobs between now and the end of the fiscal year. Though the company is hoping to do it in a way that is not exactly what we expect from traditional layoffs. The company is hoping to get rid of the 5,000 or so jobs without actually having to give anyone a pink slip.”