Aviation defense company Lockheed Martin Aeronautics will be laying off 200 workers at its F-35 assembly plant in Fort Worth.
A Lockheed Martin spokesperson told the Fort Worth Report that the company will lay off an additional 100 workers in the aeronautics division at its factories in Marietta, Georgia, and Palmdale, California. The layoffs are part of the company鈥檚 recent plan to reduce its overall
The layoffs affect a small number of Lockheed鈥檚 122,000 employees across the country. The company is one of the largest employers in Tarrant County, with . About 34,000 employees work in the company鈥檚 aeronautics division nationwide.
鈥淭o improve efficiencies and position the business to remain cost competitive, we made a difficult decision to reduce a limited number of positions,鈥� a Lockheed statement said. 鈥淲e are working with all impacted employees to help them identify other opportunities with Lockheed Martin.鈥�
The workers in Fort Worth who will be cut are mainly in the overhead positions in the operations area, a mix of salaried and hourly employees. A portion of employees will be those who work on the F-35, the fighter jet the company develops for the U.S. military and 18 other countries.
鈥淲e have some parts shortages that we鈥檙e experiencing that (have) left a number of folks who don鈥檛 have work in a work area,鈥� the spokesperson said.
Employees will be notified about the layoffs this week and leave the company in mid to late February. Last week, during its earnings call, Lockheed鈥檚 CEO, Jim Taiclet, estimated Lockheed will deliver between 75 and 110 F-35s to the Pentagon this year lower than its previous prediction of 97.The company told the Fort Worth Report that the layoffs aren鈥檛 related to the software delays, and that they are still hiring.
There鈥檚 no shortage of demand for the F-35. The Czech Republic recently signed on to buy F-35s, and Taiclet indicated that South Korea ordered 20 more jets.
The company recently signed a lease for 136,165 square
J.J. Gertler, senior analyst at the Teal Group, said Lockheed has been looking for a while at how to make its business more efficient and run its supply chain. Other defense companies, such as and Technologies, have made cuts to their workforce. Defense companies are coming to the realization that while the U.S. defense budget keeps growing, support for defense is less than it used to be, the analyst said.
鈥�(Defense companies) can鈥檛 necessarily count on the kinds of margins that they have had in the past,鈥� Gertler said. 鈥淪o there are a lot of defense companies adapting to that reality in different ways. Lockheed is being very forward about what they鈥檙e doing on the personnel side.鈥�
Seth Bodine is a business and economic development reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at seth.bodine@fortworthreport.org and follow on X, formerly known as Twitter.
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