I can speak for what's going on with the ERJ side as far as hiring.

A lot of people are making it out to be more than what it really is. The facts are that we knew that we were slated to lose a significant amount of aircraft at year's end. With that being said, the company stated recently that hiring and upgrading will continue, just not at the pace we've been seeing the past year (which is at full capacity) as these aircraft come off lease.

Shortly after that announcement was made, an e-mail went out to all of the instructors in the training center stating that the company was going to offer a number of voluntary furloughs for instructors willing to go back to the line. This makes sense, as the demand for training goes down. Whether or not this is the precursor to mandatory furloughs in the training center has yet to be seen. What if it does turn into mandatory furloughs in the training center though? Still, not a big deal. This has happened twice since I've gotten hired (2011) and it never trickled down to line furloughs. On top of that, the numerous times voluntary leaves were offered to line pilots since I've been here have never turned into furloughs. A lot of people also don't mention the fact that the XJT training center is the biggest it's ever been...

It's no secret that XJT needs to get it's sh*t together in the near future in order to start securing it's long term viability. As far as this news in reduction of hiring being the official start of the beginning of the end? Not sure about that just yet. I guess we'll all know 10 years from now...