Hughes Hiring 400 Despite Pentagon’s Planned Cuts

A day after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney proposed big spending cuts in the defense budget that could affect thousands of jobs in Southern California, Hughes Aircraft’s Ground Systems Group in Fullerton disclosed Friday that it is hiring 400 people to gear up for several new contracts that the company won late last year.

The hirings mark Hughes’ first significant new employment gains since December, when the El Segundo firm completed a six-month attrition program that cut 1,400 employees in anticipation of reduced federal defense spending.

Dan Reeder, a spokesman for the Ground Systems Group, said the company is hiring engineers and software developers for work at its Fullerton facility. Some hiring has already begun but most of the 400 jobs remain to be filled.

“It’s a reflection of the good news we’ve had in three contract awards,” Reeder said. “We were caught going in different directions, but we’re pleased to be in this position.”

In November, the division won a $325-million contract to develop an air traffic control system for Canada. In December, the company won an $80-million award to develop an air defense system for Taiwan, and it also won a $90-million contract on a classified weapons program.

The hiring will bring the group’s employment to 10,400 employees in Orange County. The new jobs will be primarily in the group’s command and control products division, Reeder said, but hiring will extend through all programs in Fullerton.

Bracing for an era of tightening defense budgets, Hughes announced a companywide layoff of 6,000 employees in June. The Ground Systems Group’s share of the layoffs was about 1,400, Reeder said.

Despite Cheney’s proposals for defense spending cuts, Reeder said, the company continues to diversify into commercial programs, and it expects to have a solid business base for the next couple of years.

The Ground Systems Group, which had sales of $1.3 billion in 1989, makes a wide range of weapons systems, including submarine torpedoes, weapons control systems for surface ships, anti-submarine weapons, sonar systems and air defense radar.