European aerospace group EADS, which controls Airbus, said on Friday that it would shed up to 850 jobs through voluntary departures in a restructuring of its defence and security arm Cassidian. The objective, announced in September, is to increase competitiveness with annual economies of at least 200 million euros ($260 million) per year by 2014.

Trade union sources said most of the job cuts will take place in Germany, with about a hundred each in France and Britain and a few dozen in Finland. The company said administrative personnel would be the most affected. Cassidian, which already announced 900 job losses in 2011, employs 28,000 people or about a fifth of total EADS employees.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012