Britain’s BAE Systems on Tuesday said it is laying off more than 800 employees at its two ship repair organizations on the East Coast of the United States due to less Navy and commercial work.
The biggest pending layoffs are at the company’s Norfolk, Va., shipyard where 530 employees will be laid of on or around March 18. This is the third round of layoffs at the yard in as many months as the company announced a total of 400 job reductions combined last November and December.
Before the announcement of the Norfolk layoffs in late 2015, BAE employed around 1,500 people at that yard. The company said the layoffs are needed to align the yard with the lower demand for services.
The layoffs at Norfolk are due to fewer Navy ships being homeported in the area as the addressable market of Navy surface combatants there has dropped from 56 ships in 2012 to 38 today. The layoffs are also due to changes by the Navy to its scheduling for repair services.
At BAE’s two ship repair yards in Jacksonville, Fla., the company said it will layoff 300 employees due primarily to declines in commercial shipbuilding and repair work and to a lesser degree reduced demand for Naval ship repair services. The addressable market for Navy surface combatants at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville has shrunk from 16 vessels to 12.
BAE currently has 700 employees at its ship repair facilities in Jacksonville and that number will decline to 400 after the layoffs. The layoffs in Jacksonville, which are also expected to be put into effect on or about March 18, follow a workforce reduction of 100 employees there last fall.
BAE has seven ship repair yards in the United States, including facilities in Alabama, California, Florida, Hawaii and Virginia.