Rohr Plans to Lay Off 500 in Chula Vista
Rohr, the Chula Vista based aerospace manufacturer, said Monday that it will lay off 750 white collar employees, or 8% of its total work force, over the next three months because of a slowdown in orders for commercial airliners.
Included in the layoffs are 500 workers in Chula Vista, Rohr spokesman John Walsh said Monday. The layoffs, which will be accomplished by the end of Rohr’s fiscal year July 31, amount to a 15% reduction in Rohr’s white-collar staff, including administrative and engineering workers.
The cutbacks are a result of a falling off of orders for Rohr’s nacelles, or jet engine housings, that are used in “narrow body” commercial jetliners. The reduction in domestic air travel in recent months has caused major airliner makers Boeing, Airbus and McDonnell Douglas to pull back on their production rates, he said.
For example, Boeing has reduced its orders for its 737 jetliner from an expected 20 “shipsets” per month to 14. A shipset is “one aircraft’s worth of Rohr hardware,” Walsh said. McDonnell Douglas reduced its nacelle order from parts for 12 new MD-80s to eight.
The job cuts are also due to a stoppage in deliveries in spare pylons for C-5 Galaxy Air Force cargo planes resulting from a contract dispute between Rohr and the government. Pylons are used to attach jet engines to the jet’s airframe.
The announcement is the latest in a steady stream of staff cutbacks at Rohr in recent months. Total employment is now down to 9,800, from 11,100 as of Aug. 1.
