Embraer expects to deliver 30 percent fewer airliners this year than it shipped in 2008, and roughly half the number of Legacy and Lineage corporate airplanes. This is a set of circumstances that Fred Curado, the Brazilian company’s CEO, knew full well would result in the need to shave headcount and the kind of political pressure he hadn’t faced since succeeding Mauricio Botelho as head of the company in April last year.
After all, Brazil’s socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva rose to power and maintained his political influence on a populist, pro-worker platform. Of course, Lula, as the Brazilian president is commonly known, would have to show at least an effort on the part of the government to intervene. But his visit with Curado in February proved not particularly productive from the workers’ perspective–Embraer did not deviate from its plans to lay off 20 percent of its workforce–and it likely left the company’s CEO looking stronger than many had imagined.
