European plane maker Airbus is looking around the world for 500 engineers and is having trouble finding qualified applicants in Europe, boss Thomas Enders said May 28 at the Berlin Air Show.
"We will recruit 500 engineers all over the world this year. We need the best and the brightest worldwide for our industry," Enders said. "Our sector is very challenging, in big demand of highly skilled engineers. Unfortunately we don't find them in Europe."
The Airbus boss said that in particular he needed staff familiar with lightweight composite materials used to make the next generation of passenger jets and also electrical designers.
After bemoaning a sufficient supply of such candidates in Europe, Enders added: "We are looking for global partnerships." He noted that Airbus had opened training centers for engineers in countries where the air transport market was expected to grow, citing China, India and Russia.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2008
