18 Mar 2003
BAE Systems announces 1005 job losses in its aircraft-related businesses as a result of the re-structuring of the Nimrod programme, a reduction in the future Operations and Engineering workload for Regional Aircraft at Woodford, and a reduced level of civil aircraft work in its Aerostructures business at Prestwick.
On 19 February 2003, BAE Systems announced that an agreement had been concluded between MoD and BAE Systems on the way ahead for the Nimrod MRA4 programme. That agreement will re-structure the programme in order to remove the excessive risk that had resulted from the increasing overlap between development and production in the programme. Among the re-structured programme provisions are:
- that production work would stop on the last 15 of the 18 Nimrod aircraft to be modified from MR2 to MRA4
- that work on the 3 Development Aircraft would continue to completion in order to mature the design, thus reducing risk
- that production work would only resume once the design and development work had reached a maturity that pricing for production was possible with surety
BAE Systems said there were going to be job losses as a result of this change. The full impact on the Nimrod workforce is now known. This controlled production stop results in a more than 2-year period of significantly reduced work levels in the Nimrod programme.
Of the job losses at Prestwick, 136 are Air Systems employees directly working on Nimrod. Additional losses occur in Aerostructures due to the downturn in the civil aircraft market. Losses also result from the reduction of work for the Regional Aircraft Operations and Engineering function at Woodford as a consequence of the Nimrod work reduction and the upcoming completion of a number of projects later this year. Similarly, the delay in Nimrod production causes a postponement in the Ground Maintenance and Training Package (GMTP) project resulting in the losses shown at Customer Solutions & Support.
These protracted reduced work levels necessitate the loss of 1005 aircraft-related jobs in the workforce of four BAE Systems divisions (Air Systems, Aerostructures, Regional Aircraft, and Customer Solutions & Support) across four sites (Chadderton, Prestwick, Warton, and Woodford).
| Current Site Total Employees | Current Site Nimrod Employees | Air Systems Nimrod Employee Reduction | Aerostructures Reduction | Regional Aircraft Reduction | Customer Solutions & Support Reduction | Total Reduction By Site | |
| Chadderton | 905 | 154 | 154 | 154 | |||
| Prestwick | 896 | 136 | 136 | 59 | 195 | ||
| Warton | 5500 | 792 | 145 | 19 | 164 | ||
| Woodford | 908 | 584 | 259 | 233 | 492 | ||
| 1666 | 694 | 59 | 233 | 19 | 1005 |
BAE Systems is now in consultation with employee representatives to try to mitigate these job losses, the majority of which are expected to take place by the end of 2003. The jobs retained on the Nimrod programme are to ensure the Nimrod Development Aircraft are prepared for full ground and flight testing.
Steve Mogford, Chief Operating Officer, Programmes, said, "It is always regrettable when job losses become necessary. We will work very diligently to mitigate the impact of these losses for our workforce. The Nimrod programme is a very important project for us, and the capability it will bring to the MoD is second to none in the world. But, we must take into consideration the time it will take to get sufficient design and development maturity to allow for decisions about pricing and location for production."
