Bombardier is on a hiring blitz.
Bombardier confirmed Friday that it will hire 1,000 people to work on its Global 7000 series jets.
While the final assembly of the $72-million jets will take place in Toronto, the construction and installation of the interiors of the business jets will be done in the Montreal area.
"The Global 7000 is a class-defining aircraft. It is simply the best business aircraft ever built," said Bombardier CEO Alain Bellemare.
Bombardier plans to hold a hiring fair on Nov. 25 at its Global Completion Centre (200 Cote Vertu Blvd. West, near Highway 13) as it looks for engineers, technicians, tradespeople and other specialists.
"The good news is we have talent," said Bellemare. "There is a poll of people, skilled, that you find in Montreal that you don't find anywhere else in the world."
The first planes should be ready to fly by the end of 2018, and the hirings will take place over the next 18 months.
Provincial Economic Development Minister Dominique Anglade said the population has to realize that new jobs require specialized training, and she was encouraging people to go into the trades.
"It's a problem that we hear more and more about," said Anglade. "There's no question that the manpower question is fundamental for economic development."
She said that people also recognize that Quebec's economy is booming.
"Everywhere I go when I get outside of Quebec people say there is something happening here because the economy is growing, the economy is booming, so this is extremely positive," said Anglade.
About 5,500 people already work for Bombardier in the Montreal area, and Bellemare said no jobs would be lost even though assembly of US-bound Bombardier CS 100 jets would be taking place in the U.S. facility owned by Airbus.
"We need to be extremely focused on developing competencies, developing talent," said Anglade.
The federal government loaned Bombardier $370 million earlier this year to finish developing the Global 7000.
Bellemare said earlier this week that Bombardier has four years’ worth of orders for the jet, which can be configured in many ways with multiple rooms for travellers.
MP David Lametti said the investment was paying off.
"The bottom line here is that 1,000 great jobs will be created," said Lametti, MP for LaSalle-Emard-Verdun.
In the past four years, Bombardier has laid off more than 11,000 people worldwide as it underwent a massive restructuring.
At the same time it has hired thousands of people in new divisions, created a partnership with Airbus to sell its CS100 series jets in the United States, rearranged its board of directors and received $1 billion from the provincial government in exchange for shares.
Two years ago, 400 Montreal-area workers were laid off from the business jet division. Most have now been hired back and 100 are still on the recall list.
“There is a full-court press on hiring, so we are looking at all candidates and we are looking at the rehiring pool for sure,” said David Coleal, president of Bombardier business aircraft.
The new jobs will pay between $60,000 and $100,000 per year – and with the unemployment rate in the province at only 6 per cent, Bombardier may even have trouble filling all the positions.
“It’s a problem we hear more and more about,” said Suzanne Benoit of Aero Montreal, a think tank for Quebec’s aerospace industry.
Benoit said students have been avoiding the aerospace industry
“They think the industry isn't performing well because we hear news about Bombardier and it influences their choices sometimes,” she said, adding that in reality, aerospace could be one of the brightest options for a well-paying career.
“We will need, in the next 10 years, 30,000 people,” she said. “We are the third largest aerospace city in the world.”
Bellemare said finding 1,000 people could be difficult, so they are looking at all options – including headhunting.
“Do we have a little challenge to recruit people? Yeah and are we going to make it work? Yes. I mean we have never been short on people,” he said.
