Last updated 11:49, Friday, 21 November 2008

TWENTY five jobs are being axed at Barrow’s shipyard in a shock announcement by BAE.

ANNOUNCEMENT: The job cuts are to hit the Armaments Production Facility, pictured

The group’s Land Systems division announced a total of 200 UK jobs losses this morning.

Government delays in orders for new army vehicles are blamed for the losses.

BAE says the 25 local job losses includes eight contractors, and the company hopes all the redundancies in the town will be voluntary.

David Allott, managing director of BAE Land Systems, said: “We recognise the impact these job losses will have on our employees and the communities in which we operate. We always aim to mitigate as much as possible the impact of losses by offering voluntary redundancy where we can, as well as re-skilling and re-training people for alternative roles.

“We have been able to postpone this decision due to high workload but that activity is now tailing off.”

Terry Waiting, chairman of the Keep Our Future Afloat Campaign shipyard lobby group, said: “Obviously any job losses are a tragedy for the individuals and we hope they can be absorbed in the locality, because there is obviously a shortage of skilled people in the area.

“This has come at a particularly bad time because there is a downturn in a lot of industries in the country.”

BAE Land Systems is also cutting jobs at Newcastle, Leeds, Leicester and Telford.

The announcement comes after former BAE chief Mike Turner told a Parliamentary committee there had been “18 months of limbo” by the government over expected orders for a new breed of armoured vehicles.

Barrow workers were surprised at the announcement in the Armaments Production Facility in Barrow this morning.

The arms plant employs 460 people and makes sections of the locally-designed M777 howitzer, sold in large numbers to the USA. It is also working on a new 155 calibre prototype gun for the Royal Navy.

BAE Land Systems spokesman Mike Sweeney said: “The plan is to open a voluntary redundancy programme immediately, alongside a period of consultation with trade unions and other employee representatives. “These job losses are the result of a decline in workload on the UK Ministry of Defence’s Armoured Fighting Vehicle programmes.”

Barrow is not currently building any armoured vehicles although it could possibly expect work on a new gun for the vehicles if the order went ahead.

While the armaments workforce is shrinking slightly, the shipbuilding workforce in Barrow is set to rise to 5,000.