Posted: Sat, Mar 17, 2001, 10:40 AM ET (1540 GMT)
Boeing plans to lay off 400 space station workers in Huntsville, Alabama, because of cuts to the program, an article published Saturday announced. The Huntsville Times reported that Boeing gave 60-day notices to 129 company employees and contractors on Friday, with another 271 to be laid off by the end of the year. The layoffs, equal to a third of the company's space station workforce there, are linked to plans announced last month to scale back the station, eliminating habitation and propulsion modules. Those cutbacks are part of an effort to trim $1 billion from the escalating cost of the orbiting facility. A Boeing spokesperson told the Times that the company would work to find other jobs within the company for the laid-off personnel. Boeing is the prime contractor for the American portion of the ISS.
