Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Air Force Plant 42 Still 2nd-Largest Employer : Aerospace: The shifting of work from other areas is stimulating growth, the facility’s commander says.

Air Force Plant 42 continues to be the Antelope Valley’s second-largest employer despite a slight drop in employment at that facility, which the plant’s commander believes is due to a traditional seasonal drop.

Semiannual statistics released by Plant 42 commander Maj. Peter Drinkwater Tuesday show that 7,949 people are employed at the test and production facility, down from January when 8,293 were employed there. Lockheed Advanced Development Co., Northrop’s B-2 Division and Rockwell are the largest employers at Plant 42.

“There’s a normal attrition cycle, hiring cycle,” Drinkwater said, noting that he reviewed the biannual reports for the last decade. “It goes up in the fall, winter months.”

Despite the drop, Drinkwater said he believes that the facility will probably meet its projections to surpass 10,000 employees in mid-1995. “I think we’re going to see it,” he said.

Lockheed is relocating its top-secret Skunk Works operation from Burbank to Palmdale and Northrop is continuing to consolidate some of its work on the B-2 stealth bomber to Palmdale from its Pico Rivera plant.

“That’s where the growth is coming from,” Drinkwater said. “Not from new defense work.”

It was a decade ago when employment at Plant 42 was above the 10,000 mark, he said.

In conjunction with the decline in the number of employees, the payroll generated at the facility also shows a decrease between the January and July review periods, Drinkwater said. Payroll at the time of the January report was $318.7 million compared to $298.8 million when the statistics were compiled this month.

Plant 42 is second only to Edwards Air Force Base as an employer in the Antelope Valley. There are about 14,300 military, civilian and contract personnel at Edwards AFB, which has an annual payroll of about $570 million.

Besides employing people, the contractors at the facility have awarded $21.3 million in contracts to local businesses since Jan. 1, Drinkwater said. Local contracts over the prior six months amounted to $18.7 million.

One year ago Plant 42 had 7,188 employees, a payroll of $242.2 million and awarded local contracts valued at $31.3 million.

The employment gains this July compared to one year ago are due largely to expansion in the Palmdale presence of Skunk Works and Northrop’s B-2 Division.

Lockheed Advanced Development Co. spokesman Jim Ragsdale said about 3,000 of the company’s 4,000 employees are in Palmdale. The last 1,000 people still working from the Burbank facility are expected to be based in Palmdale by late spring in 1994, he said. The company recently laid off about 400 employees.

Northrop has about 3,330 employees at Plant 42 and that number is expected to grow as the last of the 800 to 1,000 positions are moved from Pico Rivera to Palmdale, spokesman Ed Smith said.

Drinkwater said that if nothing else the good news is that Plant 42 appears to be remaining stable in a time of defense downsizing.