Pratt and Whitney to Reduce Manufacturing Workforce

Pratt & Whitney to Reduce Manufacturing Workforce

EAST HARTFORD, CT, January 21, 2000—Pratt & Whitney announced today that job reductions are commencing as part of its 1999 restructuring plans. The company will begin the elimination of up to 1,700 jobs, primarily in its Connecticut-based manufacturing operations, to address an overall decline in the world aerospace markets. Actions will begin this month with reductions continuing throughout 2000. Approximately 1,500 of the affected positions will be hourly jobs and around 200 will be salaried. The number of hourly layoffs would have been much greater were it not for early retirement programs offered in 1999. The company will now offer a voluntary separation program for non-engineering salaried workers in manufacturing who are at least 55 years old with ten years of service. The bulk of the job reductions are the result of lower new engine deliveries over the next two to three years. Pratt & Whitney will deliver less than 600 engines in 2000 as compared with 800 in 1998 and nearly 700 in 1999.

Work is also being transferred to partner facilities around the world to fulfill existing partnership and offset obligations. The job cuts announced today are in addition to approximately 3,500 positions that Pratt & Whitney has been eliminating since the start of a major restructuring and consolidation effort in 1998. It also reflects concerns first expressed last year about potential job reductions due to an expected decline in manufacturing volume. The company employs 31,000 people on a worldwide basis with around 13,000 in the state of Connecticut. Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies company, is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of jet engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines.