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SEATTLE: The head of Boeing Co.’s Integrated Defense Systems has told employees that the defense division will have to cut about 1,000 jobs because of Pentagon budget reductions.
In an internal memo Monday, Boeing’s Jim Albaugh says the job reductions are needed to keep the company competitive.
Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive of the company’s Integrated Defense Systems, told the division’s employees of the cuts.
Albaugh said the company is “facing significant funding reductions” on the Ground-based Midcourse Defense program and a halt to the ground-vehicle program in the Army’s Future Combat Systems.
Boeing spokesman Dan Beck said the company is not prepared to release specifics about the job cuts. But they will affect employees at several IDS sites, including St. Louis, Southern California and Puget Sound.
Employees affected by cuts will be notified beginning this week.
Boeing’s IDS, with headquarters in Hazelwood and production facilities in the St. Louis region, is the area’s second-largest employer with 16,000 workers.
Albaugh said in his internal message that recent steps by Boeing customers forced the company’s hand.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates proposed restructuring the Future Combat Systems modernization program in April.
He made it clear he wanted to cancel the ground vehicles, saying they were ill-suited for the kinds of wars the United States is fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Boeing is the lead contractor for the modernization program along with Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego.