100 Workers in Computer Unit Are Laid Off

In a move signaling the beginning of the end for its U.S. minicomputer operation, McDonnell Douglas has laid off 100 of its 450 Computer Services unit employees and shifted responsibility for domestic sales and marketing to its Field Services subsidiary.

McDonnell Douglas Computer Services, which only last year moved into a new, 300,000-square-foot, $25-million headquarters here, has been hit hard by the nationwide minicomputer industry crunch.

As a result, the computer unit--which had as many as 750 employees at its peak--also is contemplating moving all manufacturing to its parent company, McDonnell Douglas Information Systems International, in Britain early next year.

Such a move would leave an engineering unit, which now has about 100 employees, as the Computer Services Co.’s only U.S. operation.

The layoff notices, which followed a smaller payroll reduction of 60 workers in October, were handed out Wednesday.

“They were pretty much across the board, although a large percentage of the people who got them were in senior middle management,” said Norm Bryga, Computer Systems marketing director.

Bryga, who received one of the layoff notices himself, said most of the affected employees’ jobs will end Jan. 19.

He confirmed reports that workers were told earlier this week that the 200-employee manufacturing unit here would keep going through 1990 but that McDonnell Douglas executives would probably move it to Britain if the domestic minicomputer industry remains depressed.

Several former Computer Systems executives said Friday that top management has all but made a final decision to stop manufacturing in the United States.

Separately, McDonnell Douglas has said it wants to sell its Field Services subsidiary and plans to spin off the Information Systems International subsidiary in a public offering in Great Britain later this year.