The UK Defence Journal was contacted by a source at BAE’s shipyards who said staff were told this week that up to 116 management roles will be cut across its Naval Ships business.
This has now been confirmed.
According to the source, BAE Systems Managing Director Sir Simon Lister told executives at a Tuesday morning meeting that around 15% of management roles will be shed.
The news comes less than a week after BAE announced a landmark £10 billion deal to build anti-submarine frigates for Norway on the Clyde, an order hailed as one of the most significant shipbuilding exports in decades. Despite this, the company appears to be restructuring its management at a time when its overall order book and workforce are expanding.
We understand that the changes affect management positions across BAE’s Naval Ships business rather than shop-floor or production staff.
At the time of writing, BAE Systems had issued a statement in response to media enquiries. A spokesman said: “We’ve undertaken a review to consider how we reshape and modernise the operations of our naval ships business following considerable investment in our infrastructure in recent years.
Whilst we expect the overall size of the business to continue to grow, we’ll now commence consultation to potentially reduce our executive population by up to 116 roles. We’ll work alongside our employee representative groups to do everything we can to support our colleagues, including exploring potential opportunities in other areas of the company. In the meantime, our focus remains on delivering for our customers.”
The move, it is believed, reflects a wider push to modernise BAE’s naval operations, even as major contracts secure the long-term future of shipbuilding on the Clyde
Will they be replaced by Drones too ?
Nah,AI.
Bit difficult to get one’s head around this, if with almost unprecedented growth they can get rid of that many management positions now, what the hell were they doing over the past decade or so? Let’s hope there is some logic behind it, but history has taught me to always be nervous when British Industry makes almost any substantial decision of this nature that raises real questions. Let’s hope those who have had such a positive role in turning the naval business around who will be going.
Agreed.
Note it says executive-management roles.
I think its a lot of executive staff that have been picked up from merger and acquisitions that were given essentially non-jobs to avoid redundancy or were guaranteed continued employment as a condition of selling their shares.
Babcock were pretty efficient at getting HMS Venturer built and floated.
Maybe BAE feel a bit embarrassed or threatened ?