58.9 F
San Diego
Monday, Mar 18, 2024
-Advertisement-

Local Aerospace Bucks National Trend

Local Aerospace Bucks National Trend

BY BRAD GRAVES

Some San Diego employers are defying a national trend in the aerospace industry , head count at several of the area’s big aerospace contractors is rising, while nationally, employment in the same sector is bottoming out.

Defense contractors such as General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corp. have reported big gains in employment during the past 18 months, and say they expect to add more employees as the year progresses.

However other contractors, such as Goodrich Corp.’s Aerostructures plant in Chula Vista , which handles a mix of commercial and defense work , shed 21 percent of its jobs in that same period.

The picture nationally is not pretty.

The Aerospace Industries Association reported last month that U.S. aerospace employment had slipped to its lowest level in 50 years.

The Washington, D.C.-based association reported national aerospace employment was at 689,000 people at the end of 2002.

That figure is down 13 percent, or 106,000 people, since Sept. 11, 2001. Not only was the date of the East Coast terror attacks a day of human loss, it was also a watershed for civil aviation , a day when flying to one’s destination became less popular.

The association reported national aerospace employment is down roughly half, or 642,000 people, since December 1989, at the end of the Cold War.

John W. Douglass, the association’s chief executive, attributed the decline to several factors: the Sept. 11 attacks, a crisis in civil aviation, a crisis in the commercial space business, and industry mergers and acquisitions.

Yet San Diego companies at work on pilotless military aircraft are seeing none of this loss.

GA Aeronautical Systems, which builds two versions of the Predator, increased its employment from 529 people in September 2001 to 832 people at the end of February, said spokeswoman Cyndi Wegerbauer. That’s a gain of 57 percent in 17 months.

The privately held company has seen “lots of activity” in that time, Wegerbauer said: Department of Defense contracts increased and were modified. The Air Force purchased the propjet-powered Predator B model.

The U.S. military has put the Predator to work in the Iraq war, but details on the extent of its use has been scarce. Wegerbauer only said that the aircraft has been a “workhorse.”

Another company, Northrop Grumman Corp., employs roughly 1,000 people at its Integrated Systems sector in San Diego. The sector makes the Global Hawk high-altitude spy plane, as well as the Fire Scout unmanned helicopter and aerial targets.

The head count there is up from 600 in October 2001, said spokeswoman Cynthia Curiel.

Employment figures have nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks or the war on terror, Curiel said. The increase has come as a result of the Air Force’s decision to move ahead with the production of Global Hawk, she said.

A Northrop arm that makes avionics for military aircraft has also seen growth.

Northrop’s Radio Systems unit employed roughly 600 people in San Diego toward the end of 2001. It added 219 San Diego employees in 2002 and 60 in the first quarter of 2003, said spokeswoman Sudi Bruni.

Radio Systems makes electronics for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F/A-22 Raptor and the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter.

Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman trades on the New York Stock Exchange as NOC.

In the south part of the county, Goodrich Corp.’s Aerostructures facility has seen its employment fall like the trade group’s survey.

Before Sept. 11, employment at Goodrich’s Chula Vista facility was 2,428 people. It has since declined to 1,919 people.

Before its 1997 purchase by Goodrich, the Aerostructures unit went by the name Rohr. Its specialties include nacelles, the outer housing for jet engines.

The period following Sept. 11 was a time of job cuts, consolidation and plant closures for Charlotte, N.C.-based Goodrich. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange as GR.

Big Swings Since Sept. 11

Employee counts at selected San Diego County aerospace companies, fall 2001 and spring 2003:

– General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. 529 then, 832 now.

– Goodrich Corp. Aerostructures Group 2,428 then, 1,919 now.

– Northrop Grumman Corp. Integrated Systems Sector 600 then, 1,000 now.

– Northrop Grumman Corp. Radio Systems 600 then, 880 now.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

Oberon Eyes Europe for Renewable DME

Leaders of Influence in Law 2024

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-