Associated Press
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Savannah — When Gulfstream Aerospace settled in Georgia with 100 employees in 1967, there was little hint the company would take hold as Savannah’s largest private employer and as Ferrari of private jet manufacturers.
So the announcement Thursday that Gulfstream is laying off 1,200 workers — many of them at its Savannah headquarters — and will furlough an additional 1,500 employees here for five weeks this summer has this coastal community bracing for a major economic blow.
“It’s going to hurt all the local businesses in town,” said Kelly Heino, whose family owns and operates Ronnie’s, a mom-and-pop restaurant near the Savannah plant. “We’re open from 6 a.m. to 10 at night, and I would say we get their employees for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
With 6,000 employees on the Georgia coast, Gulfstream is by far Savannah’s largest private employer. Building posh, pricey jets — the new long-range G650 produced here is expected to sell for $60 million — offers workers some of the area’s best paying jobs.
Matthew Leasure, 25, earned about $50,000 last year working as a contract electrical technician at the Savannah plant. With Gulfstream already laying off its 600 contractors company-wide, the former Army helicopter repair specialist says he may have to seek work as a military contractor overseas to find a wage that competes.
Leasure and his wife, a full-time student, were already struggling to dig themselves out of debt. She may have to drop out of college to find work, he said.
“We’re really close to losing our house,” Leasure said. “My credit score right now is ridiculous. I have to rely completely on what I make.”
Gulfstream, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, will spread the layoffs among its 6,000 employees on the Georgia coast and 4,000 workers at plants in Dallas, Appleton, Wis., and Long Beach, Calif., as well as 11 service centers nationwide.
Gulfstream spokesman Robert Baugniet said Friday that, in addition to the 600 contractors being laid off, 600 full-time workers will lose their jobs in May. He said it’s unknown how many layoffs would affect Savannah.
“It’s a very painful experience,” Baugniet said. “We’ve got three generations of the same families working here, and we’re telling them, ‘Through no fault of your own, you’ve got to go.’”
The layoffs are blamed on a Gulfstream’s shrinking backlog. Baugniet said orders for jets through 2012 are pushed back by customers waiting for the bleak economy to turn around.
It hasn’t helped, he said, that President Obama has singled out corporate jets as a symbol of greed and largesse in speeches about the meltdown.
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