Westinghouse Electric Corp. said yesterday that it would lay off 1,400 workers in Maryland by the end of the year.
The layoffs affect one out of every nine jobs that Westinghouse, the state's largest manufacturing employer, has at its sprawling complex next to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport and in Hunt Valley.
Word of the new cuts -- Westinghouse's third major work-force reduction in the state since February 1991 -- came on the heels of the company's recent loss of a big ground-based radar contract to Raytheon Corp. in Lexington, Mass. It also came a week after Congress took steps to halt funding on a multibillion dollar electronic radar jamming system that Westinghouse is producing for Navy fighter planes.
In his letter to employees announcing the scheduled reduction, Richard A. Linder, president of the Electronic Systems Group in Linthicum, attributed the need for layoffs to delays in contracts and reductions of the work done for the Defense Department.
He said the "prolonged recession" had also limited the growth of the group's commercial business, both in this country and abroad.
These new job cuts would be made "across the board" and in all phases of the operation, said a Westinghouse spokesman, Jack Martin, explaining that the jobs cuts would include management as well as professionals, salaried workers and hourly employees.
Yesterday's announcement came after the Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corp. had lost almost $1 billion in market value this week on concerns that credit problems at its financial services unit are worse than the company is indicating. The company's stock fell 19.7 percent in the past four days, closing 1 1/2 points lower yesterday, at 11 3/4 .
Westinghouse reported Monday that a combined third-quarter write-off of $155 million had reduced its third-quarter earnings to $14 million, or nothing per share. Revenue fell to $3.04 billion from $3.4 billion last year. Standard & Poor's Corp. and Duff & Phelps followed by cutting their ratings on Westinghouse's credit this week, citing concerns that the company might be forced to take additional write-offs.
This latest loss of 1,400 jobs comes on top of about 1,200 jobs that Westinghouse eliminated in the state last year after Defense Secretary Dick Cheney canceled production of the Navy's A-12 attack-aircraft program.
