Defence giant BAE Systems is to axe 74 jobs in Bristol as part of the near-3,000 redundancies it has announced.
The world’s second biggest defence company, BAE employs 620 at Filton, which is the headquarters of its advanced research and development division.
Filton shares with a site in Chelmsford, Essex, virtually all of BAE Systems’ advanced technology research – an area of activity vital to the group.
It designs and makes a full range of products and services for air, land and naval forces, as well as advanced electronics, security, information technology and support services – and it needs advanced research and development to maintain its world-beating status.
The operation has escaped most of the pain of the job cuts which are mainly in its military aircraft division – in particular factories in Yorkshire and Lancashire where its builds the Eurofighter Typhoon.
The Brough factory in East Yorkshire will lose 900 jobs from its 1,300-strong workforce. At Samlesbury, Lancashire, 565 jobs will go from the 3,970-strong workforce while in Warton, Lancashire, 843 posts will be lost among 6,537 staff.
Elsewhere 132 jobs will be lost at Yeovil with others going at plants in Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey and Essex.
The job losses at Brough, Samlesbury, Preston and Warton are linked to the changes in Typhoon and F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) production, BAE said, while those at other plants are associated with reducing workload on information programmes.
Potential job losses at Farnborough, Surrey, have been driven by a reduction in Harrier and Tornado work, and job cuts at Royal Air Force bases.
BAE chief executive Ian King said in a statement: “Our customers are facing huge pressures on their defence budgets and affordability has become an increasing priority. Our business needs to rise to this challenge to maintain its competitiveness and ensure its long-term future.
“Some of our major programmes have seen significant changes. The four partner nations in the Typhoon programme (UK, Germany, Spain and Italy) have agreed to slow production rates to help ease their budget pressures.
“Whilst this will help extend our production schedule and ensure the production line stays open until we receive anticipated export contracts, it does reduce the workload at a number of our sites.
“Pressure on the US defence budget and top-level programme changes mean the anticipated increase in F-35 production rates will be slower than originally planned, again impacting on our expected workload.”
BAE achieved global sales in 2010 of £22.4bn.
