Sikorsky parent company Lockheed Martin announced Tuesday it would cut jobs in its Rotary and Mission Systems division in the coming year, with some cuts likely to come in Stratford.
About 800 of the 35,000 jobs in Lockheed Martin’s nationwide Rotary and Mission Systems workforce will be eliminated, with some workers redeployed to other parts of the business, along with “natural attrition and a limited reduction in force,” the company said in a statement.
“To improve efficiencies, position the business to remain cost competitive and address changes in program lifecycles, we made a difficult decision to reduce a limited number of positions within our Rotary and Mission Systems business segment,” the statement said.
The 800 job cuts will be spread across Lockheed’s operations and not limited to Sikorsky, according to a Lockheed Martin spokesperson. Details of any cuts in Stratford are expected to be announced in coming months.
Sikorsky employs 7,900 people at its Stratford facility, located at 6900 Main St.
“We are still conducting a thorough analysis and do not have specifics on the roles and locations of these impacts at this time,” the spokesperson said. “We will work to identify other opportunities within the company for affected employees, where possible.”
At an event on Friday celebrating the delivery of the 5,000th Black Hawk helicopter, Sikorsky President Paul Lemmo said no major job cuts in Stratford were planned for the near future, even as the company dealt with the loss of a key contract bid.
Sikorsky lost out to Texas-based Bell on an initial $1.3 billion bid for the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift program, a long-range assault aircraft seen as a successor to the Black Hawk.
“This [Future Vertical Lift] decision has no major immediate impact on our workforce here,” Lemmo said on Friday. “There are many other programs here… they fluctuate from year to year, and so we may make adjustments from year to year, but this particular decision does not have any major immediate impact.”
Sikorsky parent company Lockheed Martin reported on Tuesday that the Rotary and Mission Systems division’s opening profit in 2022 dropped $125 million, or 7%, compared to 2021, due in part to “lower production volume” at Sikorsky.
But the division’s net sales in the fourth quarter increased $343 million, or 8%, compared to the same period in 2021, credited in part to the ramp-up of Sikorsky’s heavy-lift CH-53K and Combat Rescue Helicopter programs.
The company set aside $100 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 for severance and restructuring costs, according to the statement.
Sikorsky officials have said that strong international interest in its Black Hawk platform and growing demand for the CH-53K helicopter should sustain production levels at the Stratford plant in coming years.
Speaking at the Black Hawk event on Friday, Lockheed Martin President and CEO James Taiclet said the company has an ongoing commitment to modernize and market Sikorsky’s core products. “I think we can really take the Black Hawk to the next level and make it even more valuable than it is today,” he said.
Contact Liese Klein at lklein@newhavenbiz.com.
