Hughes Expecting More Layoffs This Year : Aerospace: The company has already cut 3,000 jobs since January. Employees are bracing for more bad news.

Hughes Aircraft has eliminated nearly 3,000 jobs since Jan. 1, mainly at its Southern California plants, and expects further significant layoffs before year-end, the company said Friday.

The cutbacks at Los Angeles-based Hughes are among the year’s biggest aerospace layoffs in Southern California, though McDonnell Douglas, Northrop and General Dynamics have also laid off thousands as they adjust to post-Cold War reductions in defense spending.

Hughes spokesman Richard Dore said he could not estimate how many additional layoffs will occur at the defense electronics firm this year, because it will depend on future contracting actions by the Pentagon.

But one Hughes executive, who asked not to be named, told The Times that internal planning documents indicate as many as 700 positions could be cut at just one Hughes unit, the electro-optical data systems group in El Segundo. Dore said the company is unaware of that estimate.

As many as 6,000 more jobs could be lost as Hughes consolidates its own missile operation with that of General Dynamics, which Hughes is acquiring for $450 million. The two firms have 16,000 missile workers, but anticipate going down to 10,000 or 11,000 as the two operations are combined this year and next.

Meanwhile, Hughes employees are bracing for what might be big news next week.

Hughes Chairman C. Michael Armstrong is expected to make a presentation to the board of parent General Motors on Monday. Some at Hughes are expecting him to propose a restructuring that could cost many more jobs.

Hughes has been among the most aggressive U.S. aerospace firms in efforts to diversify into commercial businesses, but the rapid pace of defense spending cuts has overshadowed efforts in the short term to find new revenue sources.

Since Hughes has a huge number of relatively small defense programs, no single one accounts for very many of the job losses. Dore said Friday that the job cuts have been spread over the entire company and throughout all occupations.

Hughes began the year with 63,240 workers at its major groups and subsidiaries across the nation, Dore said. By the end of May, the number was trimmed to 60,300. At its defense buildup peak in mid-1986, Hughes employed 82,100.

Of the 3,000 jobs cut this year, most have been through layoffs. About 2,500 jobs were eliminated in Hughes’ “core” operations, which exclude the firm’s subsidiary operations, Dore said.

Of those 2,500 jobs, about 500 layoffs were at the firm’s missile plant in Tucson. The vast majority of the other 2,000 are believed to have been cut in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Dore said Hughes cut 350 jobs at its electro-optical group in El Segundo, 200 at its radar systems group in El Segundo and 250 at its ground systems group in Fullerton. Even the firm’s healthy satellite manufacturing and communications business, also in El Segundo, lost 200 workers.

Hughes insiders said the firm got one bit of good news this week: It appears to have won a major secret missile program at its Canoga Park operation.

Hughes is said to be locating it in a sealed portion of the facility. Dore said he could not confirm the reports.