The engineering company, which makes plane engines, has warned that it will take “several years” before the airline industry fully recovers from the pandemic.
The company says it is carrying out a “major reorganization” of its business in order to adapt to a fall in demand.
It says that the decision to cut nearly a fifth of its workforce could result in savings of £700 million, mainly affecting its civil aerospace division and that the majority of the cuts will fall in the U.K.
Chief executive Warren East said: “This is not a crisis of our making. But it is the crisis that we face and we must deal with it.
“Our airline customers and airframe partners are having to adapt and so must we. “Being told that there is no longer a job for you is a terrible prospect and it is especially hard when all of us take so much pride in working for Rolls-Royce.
“But we must take difficult decisions to see our business through these unprecedented times.
“Governments across the world are doing what they can to assist businesses in the short-term, but we must respond to market conditions for the medium-term until the world of aviation is flying again at scale, and governments cannot replace sustainable customer demand that is simply not there.”
The company also said that it “will also cut expenditure across plant and property, capital and other indirect cost areas.”
Rolls Royce is hoping the restructuring will generate annualized savings of more than £1.3bn.
It comes as plane maker Airbus also warned last month that it could take as long as five years for the industry to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
As countries impose lockdown restrictions and implement quarantines for passengers, the airline industry has been one of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy as a result of the pandemic, with passenger revenues all but wiped out.
British Airways announced last month that it was making 12,000 of its 42,000 staff redundant in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
