General Electric plans to eliminate a quarter of jobs in its jet engine segment, a move that could affect hundreds of employees in North Carolina.
In a letter to its employees on Monday, GE Aviation said that the company planned to lay off 25% of its 52,000 employees — around 13,000 people — because of the devastation COVID-19 has caused on the airline industry.
“Global [air] traffic is expected to be down approximately 80% in the second quarter when compared to the start of the pandemic’s effect in China in early February,” GE Aviation CEO David Joyce said in the letter. “Our aircraft manufacturers have announced reduced production schedules that will extend into 2021 and beyond reacting to the projected prolonged recovery.”
“To protect our business, we have responded with difficult cost-cutting actions over the last two months,” he added. “Unfortunately, more is required as we scale the business to the realities of our commercial market.”
A spokesman for GE Aviation declined to say how say how many people would be laid off at GE’s facilities in North Carolina — but the company has a significant presence in the Tar Heel State.
GE Aviation employs more than 1,700 people at several facilities across North Carolina, including in Asheville, West Jefferson, Wilmington and Durham, according to a 2018 report by the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina.
The campus in southern Durham employed about 400 people, though the company had already laid off dozens of people there in March, WRAL Techwire reported.
A spokesman for the state’s Commerce Department said that GE Aviation had not filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, something that is required for mass layoffs.
In 2018, GE Aviation received incentives from the state of North Carolina to add workers in Asheville and West Jefferson, where it makes parts for jet engines. GE received a grant worth $558,700 from the state’s One North Carolina Fund.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
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