The company said that part time and job share didn't save as much as one would think, although you save a salary, you still have all the recurrent training, sim traing, lcencing costs, medical costs, recency and currecy requirements to worry about.
Pure laziness and lack of political will.
Suggest individuals will pay for their recurrent sim through reduction in salary over 12 months. Recurrency, such as Line Checks, would cost very little. Medicals can easily be met by individuals. Licence renewal every 5 years.
Then see if they can come up with actual costs which would render the idea prohibitive....
What's the next excuse?
its not an excuse! employers are not charities. If you propose a 'job share' in lieu of redundancy then the employer would expect the two people doing a job share will cost the same as 1 person working full time. This is clearly not the case. just the 16 extra hours of sim time is going to cost about 8 grand. Ensuring that someone flying a 50% roster is always inside recency and currency rules can be quite difficult.
Of course its better than someone loosing their job - but honestly - would you accept a 50% job share - but only on 40% Salary due to the extra costs?
I expect in a large airlines with regular routes and rosters it would be possible, albeit not realising the full 1 for 1 savings. I would guess 4 pairs of people doing a job share would probably save 3 redundancies. In a small airline with irregular work its almost impossible.
Also the answer that came from our employer was not 'dismissive' it was a considered answer after they had looked at the possibilty - clearly not lack of will.