Aerojet Rocketdyne to Lay off 5 Percent of its Employees

Newly formed Aerojet Rocketdyne says it will lay off roughly 225 employees, or 5 percent of its workforce, at its Sacramento and Chatsworth rocket engine plants, it was reported today.

In a letter to employees, company President Warren M. Boley Jr. said the pending layoffs were necessary to eliminate redundancies and achieve efficiency after Aerojet parent GenCorp completed its $550 million purchase of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in June, the Los Angeles Daily news reported.

“Now that we have successfully combined our two companies,” Boley said, “we must address the need to ensure long-term customer affordability and market competitiveness.”

Over the next 60 days, he said notices would be sent to the laid off workers in Sacramento and at the De Soto Avenue facility in Chatsworth in primarily engineering, operations, supply chain and materiel management and business development. The historic Canoga Avenue plant in Canoga Park, although listed in the employee memo, has been essentially shuttered for redevelopment, according to the Daily News.

The combined Aerojet Rocketdyne company in June had 5,300 workers at 16 sites across the globe. The Rocketdyne division once employed tens of  thousands of workers to build powerful engines to propel Apollo missions, space shuttles and more.

--City News Service