Hundreds to Lose Jobs at North Island Facility

The Naval Aviation Depot on North Island will lay off as many as 825 employees in an effort to make the aircraft repair facility more competitive with private industry and other military depots, the Navy said Monday.

The announcement came one day after a Pentagon commission spared two San Diego military facilities--the Naval Training Center and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot--from closure or realignment.

The Naval Aviation Depot, which now employs 4,400 civilians, along with the five other Navy depots across the country asked the Navy earlier this year for permission to make the cuts, said Mike Hammond, spokesman for the depot at North Island Naval Air Station.

“The depot is being reorganized to streamline our management structure in eliminating activities that do not add value to the product,” said Hammond, who could not specify which personnel will be cut.

The layoffs are taking place against a background of increasing competition between military depots and private, commercial ventures, Hammond said.

“The work that we perform on the aircraft either has been or will be open to competition, and there may be inter-service competition as well,” Hammond said.

The depot’s main function is to conduct maintenance and engineering work on such aircraft as the FA-18 Hornet fighter-bomber, the E-2 Hawkeye early warning aircraft and the F-14 Tomcat fighter, Hammond said.

Employees affected by the cuts will be notified by Aug. 1, and those cuts will become effective Sept. 30, Hammond said.

Barry Adams of the National Council of Industrial Naval Air Stations, which represents the 22,000 civilian employees of the six naval air stations, said about 2,400 people will be laid off from Naval depots this year.

“Basically, it’s due to budget constraints. As the size of the force structure comes down, the work is not generated, and so we reduce the size of the depots so we can stay in business,” Adams said.

Last year, the North Island depot imposed hiring freezes, released temporary employees and requested early retirement authorization for eligible employees from the Navy as part of cost-saving measures, Hammond said.

The Air Force cut 11,000 employees from its overhaul depots last year, Adams said.