Bombardier Aerospace has told its Northern Ireland workforce there will be no further redundancies at its Belfast, Co Antrim, operations before April at the earliest.

The Canadian transport giant said that, providing there was no further deterioration in the aerospace sector, there would be substantially fewer redundancies than it had originally forecast.

Bombardier issued its first warning last September, saying 2,000 jobs were at risk in Belfast because of the downturn in production levels as a result of either cancelled or postponed orders by large commercial airlines.

Production levels in Northern Ireland are dictated by the demand for new aircraft from commercial carriers, large corporations and wealthy individuals or governments.

The terrorist attacks on the US last year and the subsequent downturn in air travel combined with the economic slump had a heavy impact on Bombardier's business and commercial customers.

To date, more than 416 permanent employees and 550 temporary staff have left the company in Northern Ireland.

In a staff bulletin, the firm told its workforce in the North this week that it expected there "will be a small surplus of indirect staff" by April at its Belfast facility.

"We will review the situation in the second quarter in advance of a number of smaller non-Bombardier contracts either reducing in production rates or coming to an end in August.

"It is expected that, as a consequence of this, a further reduction in indirect and direct manpower will occur.

"We cannot at this stage be any more specific about numbers of jobs. However, it will be several hundred less than earlier anticipated," the group said.

A spokesman for Bombardier said it would continue to pursue a number of mitigation measures with trade unions such as repatriation of outsourced work, and retraining and redeploying employees.

"The reductions still enable us to retain a strong integrated design and manufacturing capability.

"While we very much regret losing highly valued employees, it is essential that the company remains competitive and ready for the upturn when it comes," he added.