ONE of Cheltenham's biggest employers has been forced to make staff redundant.
Jet engine giant GE Aviation, has cut 51 positions from its workforce in Bishop's Cleeve.
The multi-billion-pound avionics company confirmed last night that it had offered voluntary redundancy to 1,100 salaried staff.
Those affected included engineers and other non-production workers.
A total of 69 people put themselves forward for voluntary redundancy at the end of a 30-day consultation period, with 51 positions being cut.
HR client leader Kirstie Hursthouse said the job cuts were needed to keep the firm competitive.
She added: "GE Aviation experienced a challenging year in 2012 due to a reduced commercial spares rate, continued economic uncertainty in Europe and increased global competition.
"These market dynamics will continue in 2013.
"As a result, it is critical that the Cheltenham site take actions to reduce costs in order to remain competitive and be positioned for investment.
"To address this reality, we have conducted a voluntary redundancy programme at the site, which was open to all salaried employees.
"As a result of this program 51 employees have been given the opportunity to take voluntary redundancy. We anticipate that this proposal would help achieve targeted cost-savings without negatively impacting business performance or capacity."
A total of 1,800 are currently employed by the firm in Cheltenham – making it one of the town's biggest employers.
Of the 700 not affected, all 400 members of GE's production line will remain at the company. No more redundancies have been scheduled.
Christine Starling, regional officer for Unite Gloucestershire which has members at GE Aviation, said: "This is obviously a cost-cutting exercise and it was the indirect work force that were offered voluntary redundancy.
"We made no negotiations with GE Aviation because it was not compulsory."
GE Aviation is the world's leading producer of large and small jet engines for commercial and military aircraft.
At the 2009 Paris Air Show, the firm landed $8 billion in orders.
That included Etihad's selection of the GEnx-1B engine to power its new fleet of 35 Boeing 787-9 and 10 GE90-115B-powered Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
