Contractors and recruiters working for Airbus in the UK are waiting to hear the full impact of the 1,600 job losses announced last week.

Airbus, which is owned by EADS, announced that it planned to cut 10,000 jobs across Europe over the next four years. It has confirmed that 1,600 of these losses will be in the UK where it has sites at Filton, Bristol and in Broughton, North Wales. There will also be 4,300 job cuts in France, 3,700 in Germany and 400 in Spain.

A spokesman for Airbus UK told Recruiter that half of the job losses will come from its core staff, half from contractors. "I cannot comment on the instructions that have been given to our recruiters. We are very much at the beginning of the process, not the end," he said.

Morson Group, which supplies contractors to Airbus, told Recruiter it was too early to say what the impact would be.

Another recruiter, Blue Arrow, said it was unable to comment at this time due to the sensitive nature of its contract with the aircraft giant.

Wynnwith, which is also believed to hold contracts with Airbus, was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

Keith Hazlewood, national secretary for the manufacturing division of the GMB union, said in a statement: "To lose another 1,600 jobs in the high-tech manufacturing sector is going in the wrong direction. Since a lot of taxpayers' money has been put in to this company GMB will be seeking a follow-up meeting with secretary of state Alistair Darling and other ministers to see what more can be done to avert these job losses. GMB will of course meet Airbus to get further and better particulars as to the areas where the losses may fall."