BAE Systems to cut more than 600

BAE Systems to cut more than 600 UK Jobs

Bad news still coming from all around the UK. More job cuts contiune. Thousands of people will lost their jobs and unemployment rate will be even higher.

Lets hope this stops soon.

The jobs will go from BAE’s Insyte division, which makes radar, information and mission-training systems for more than 130 of BAE’s equipment programmes. One notable project the division has worked on is the Sampson radar for the Type 45, the first of which will go into service with the Navy in the coming months. The jobs will be cut over the next two years.

Most of the planned losses will be in Portsmouth, where 220 jobs are likely to go. BAE also expects to shed 125 jobs at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, 99 in Frimley in Surrey and 86 in Chelmsford in Essex. The other sites where redundancies will be made are in Dorset, Bristol, Fife and New Malden, Surrey. BAE will start consulting staff about the job losses shortly.

The Insyte division currently employs about 3,700 people in Britain. BAE as a whole has more than 32,000 staff in the UK.

“We have a responsibility to address a reduction in our forecast workload and manage our cost base to remain competitive and meet our customers’ future requirements,” said Rory Fisher, managing director of the Insyte business.

BAE has already announced thousands of job cuts in the UK this year. In September, it said the end of the Nimrod programme would see more than 1,100 jobs go in its military aircraft division. In April, BAE said it would cut 500 jobs from its combat vehicles business.

The Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions said: “These are highly skilled jobs which the UK can not afford to lose.”

BAE, which is the subject of a Serious Fraud Office investigation, is focusing on winning support and maintenance contracts as governments on both sides of the Atlantic tighten defence budgets. A British strategic defence review is also planned, potentially putting equipment orders at risk.

Last month, BAE won a three-year contract to service Typhoon fighter plans sold to Saudi Arabia, in a deal thought to be worth £500m. BAE shares closed down 7.7 at 327.8p.

Elsewhere on the European jobs front, German anger towards General Motors’ restructuring plan of Opel/Vauxhall has escalated after a state premier dubbed it “unacceptable”.

Roland Koch, the governor of Hesse, oversees Opel’s Ruesselsheim plant, where 2,500 job cuts could go, compared with a maximum of 1,600 under proposals by Magna, whose deal to buy Opel/Vauxhall was scrapped by GM earlier this month.

The anger contrasts with the UK, where GM has confirmed it will cut no jobs at the Ellesmere Port plant and move from two-shift production to three by 2011. The future of van making at Luton is less certain, with 354 job cuts being considered.