General Dynamics Prepared to Lay Off 7,000 of Work Force

Ruling out diversification into the highly competitive civilian aviation field, a senior official of General Dynamics Corp. said today the company would prefer to lay off about 7,000 employees in face of deeper defense budget cuts.

In an interview published in today’s Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Charles Anderson, vice president and general manager of the company that makes F-16 fighter planes, said General Dynamics is not prepared to risk financial disaster by switching to commercial jet liners to make up for the lost defense business.

“The commercial world is not as rosy out there as everybody thinks it is,” said Anderson, who is in charge of General Dynamics’s Ft. Worth division where the F-16s are made. “It’s easy for people to say you ought to diversify, but the main problem is it takes a tremendous amount of cash.”

General Dynamics, headquartered in St. Louis, has already laid off 350 workers from the F-16 production line in the past month. Anderson said the company, however, will continue to make military planes at the Ft. Worth facility where 32,000 people work.