PHOENIX (AP) -- Honeywell Aerospace plans to cut 700 manufacturing jobs at the company's Phoenix jet engine plant and transfer the work to Mexico and the Czech Republic.
The cuts at the Phoenix-based subsidiary of Morristown, N.J.-based Honeywell International Inc. will begin in the second quarter of 2009 and continue for three years.
Employees were notified of the company's plans on Thursday. Fewer than 100 involuntary layoffs are expected, with the rest of the workers either retiring or transferring to other Honeywell jobs, company spokesman Bill Reavis said.
The affected jobs are at Honeywell's facility at Sky Harbor International Airport, where the company and its predecessors, Allied Signal and Garrett AiResearch, have built jet engines for almost 60 years. Honeywell also has other facilities in the area.
Existing Honeywell factories in Chihuahua, Mexico, and Olomouc in the Czech Republic will get the jobs. The move is needed to make the company more "globally competitive," Reavis said.
The manufacturing involves sheet metal engine components and some rotating engine parts, Reavis said. The company has no plans to stop final engine assembly in Phoenix.
"We are not moving our engine manufacturing operations out of Phoenix," Reavis said. "We're still here, we're going to be here and when this is all done we're expecting to still have more than 10,000 people here in the Valley."
