United Launch Alliance is set to lay off 48 employees from its Vandenberg Air Force Base operation, according to a notice posted this month by the California Employment Development Department.
The layoffs are listed as permanent and set to become effective June 1, as per an April 10 post on the EDD’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, report.
The layoffs come after the aerospace company announced in April 2016 that it planned to eliminate up to 875 jobs, or about a quarter of its total workforce, before the end of 2017.
Lyn Chassagne, a spokesperson for ULA, said in an emailed statement that the moves are a result of the company’s attempt to “provide cost-effective solutions for our customers, while we maintain our focus on mission success.”
“As we announced last year, ULA would have two reductions in force, one in 2016, which was completed, and one in 2017 to accomplish our business goals,” she added.
Chassagne said the company was hoping to accomplish “the majority” of this year’s reductions through voluntary layoffs. The company has not revealed how many total workers it employs at VAFB.
“We appreciate all of our team members’ contributions and understand the difficulty and stress that workforce reductions place on the impacted employees and their families,” Chassagne wrote in the statement.
ULA is a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The company, founded in 2006, is primarily known for its Atlas and Delta rockets, as well as its in-development Vulcan rocket, which is expected to be ready for launches in 2019.
The next ULA launch at VAFB is tentatively scheduled for June 13, according to spaceflightnow.com. For that launch, a ULA Atlas 5 rocket will attempt to carry a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
Willis Jacobson covers the city of Lompoc for Lee Central Coast Newspapers. Follow him on Twitter @WJacobsonLR.
