BAE Systems is to cut 1,775 jobs at its yards in Scotland and England and end shipbuilding altogether at Portsmouth.
The firm said 940 staff posts and 170 agency workers will go at the Portsmouth site, which will retain repairs and maintenance work.
Some 835 jobs will be lost at yards in Govan and Scotstoun on the River Clyde in Glasgow, Rosyth in Fife and Filton, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol.
The cuts follow a drop in work after the end of aircraft carriers work.
BAE Systems said it had made the cuts because of a “significant” drop in demand.
The defence contractor and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have together announced measures which they hope will offset the effect of the job cuts.
I’m told that Govan has two advantages over Portsmouth – a lower cost base and a partnership with the Scotstoun shipyard on the other side of the Clyde.
Tory strategists point out that it\’s hardly in their political interests to save a Scottish shipyard and part close an English one.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that there can be no decision on something as significant as the building of warships without a great deal of political calculation.
As I reported yesterday, one well-placed source told me that the government was \”acutely conscious of the politics of the Clyde” and did not want to give Alex Salmond a gift a little less than a year ahead of the independence referendum.
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via BBC News – BAE cuts 1,775 jobs at its English and Scottish yards.
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