Electric Boat To Lay Off 104 Employees

Electric Boat told 104 employees at the Groton shipyard Monday that they will be laid off in September, the company said in a news release.

The layoffs include carpenters, machinists, pipefitters and sheet metal workers, said Robert Hamilton, director of communications for Electric Boat.

“We have to align our workforce with our work requirements,” Bob Nardone, vice president of Human Resources and Administration, said in a prepared statement. “The affected employees are assigned to areas where the workload is not expected to support the current workforce, making this action necessary.”

The employees’ jobs will end Sept. 9.  Between now and then, they will be given access to career-transition services from the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board and counseling, the company statement said.

Electric Boat said its outlook is stable, although work demand has changed in certain areas. The company is still hiring engineers, the statement said.

In January, Electric Boat President John P. Casey said the company's business outlook was stable in 2011, with growth in engineering jobs but "softness" in the demand for trade jobs on the Groton waterfront.

He said at that time the company would hire 300 to 400 engineers in the coming year, but would see "shortages of tasks to accomplish on the Groton waterfront," particularly in the last half of the year.

Electric Boat employs about 10,000 people, including 7,500 in Groton.  Most of the company's work comes from construction of submarines. The company bought the former Pfizer Research and Development building in New London last summer, and expects to have 3,000 to 3,500 employees there by the end of 2012.