WASHINGTON — U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman plans to lay off 550 full-time employees at its space business facilities in Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach, California, marking another round of job cuts in the sector.
The company on Aug. 12 filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice (WARN) with state and local government agencies, notifying employees of the potential workforce reductions. Large employers in the state of California are required to notify workers about potential layoffs or business closures to provide them with adequate time to prepare.
“We are providing all potentially impacted employees with advance notice and have begun the process of working to match them with existing opportunities across the company,” a Northrop Grumman spokesperson said Aug. 14 in a statement to SpaceNews.
This latest round of layoffs follows a separate action earlier this year that resulted in 600 employees being redeployed across the company. Northrop Grumman indicated that these workforce adjustments are ongoing and additional employees could receive WARN notices.
The aerospace giant, which employs approximately 100,000 people globally with one-third in its space systems sector, has not specified the reasons behind the job cuts. This comes despite executives reporting growth in the company’s space business, particularly in military programs.
However, the backdrop to these layoffs includes a recent program cancellation by the U.S. Space Force, which terminated a multi-billion dollar military communications satellite project. Some NASA programs, including Commercial Resupply Services missions and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for the Artemis lunar program, have seen decreases in revenue, potentially contributing to the workforce reductions.
