Jakarta – Indonesia's state-owned aircraft manufacturer, PT Nusantara Aircraft Indutries (IPTN) will lay off another 2,500 workers over the next 10 months through early retirement, reports said Saturday.

The company, the brainchild of former president B.J. Habibie, laid off some 5,000 of its 15,750 staff last year under the retrenchment program, and the new cuts will trim the workforce to some 7,500, the Jakarta Post said.

"The ideal number is 7,500," the Post quoted Jusman the company's human resources development and administration manager as saying. Jusman added that to fund the huge amounts of severance pay needed, the equivalent of a year's pay for each employee, IPTN would sell off 46 houses it had built for expatriate staff in the West Javanese city of Bandung.

IPTN assembles several types of helicopters and produces small passenger planes in cooperation with Spain's CASA.