Raytheon Closing Mukilteo Plant -- Company To Cut 14,000 Jobs Overall

Defense contractor Raytheon will shut down its Mukilteo torpedo-manufacturing plant as part of a companywide downsizing effort, cutting 540 jobs.

The world's third-largest aerospace company, contending in part with delayed Patriot missile orders, said it will eliminate 14,000 jobs from its defense unit by the end of next year.

The job cuts represent 16 percent of the company's work force, up from an earlier downsizing target of 8,700 jobs.

About 90 positions will be eliminated by year's end, and about 460 more will be cut by December 1999, Raytheon spokesman Dave Shea said.

The cuts apply to clerical, manufacturing, engineering and management positions.

Work from the 356,000-square-foot Mukilteo plant will be transferred to a plant in Portsmouth, R.I.

Employees will receive job-placement assistance and severance packages based on their length of service and division within the company, Shea said. Some workers will relocate to the Portsmouth plant.

The job cuts come after Raytheon paid $12.5 billion last year for the defense businesses of Texas Instruments and General Motors.

Raytheon's new president, Daniel Burnham, has accelerated cost-cutting measures at the defense unit as orders for the flagship Patriot lag and the company's engineering unit struggles with slumping overseas demand.

"It's clear that Burnham is having an early impact at having Raytheon address a tough business environment," said John Hayes, an aerospace analyst at Boston's Independence Investment Associates. "It could bode well for the company going forward."

As much as $400 million in Patriot sales that might have been booked in 1998 have been delayed because Greece has taken longer than expected to place an order, Burnham said.

Information from Bloomberg News is included in this report.

Jake Batsell's phone message number is 206-464-2595. His e-mail address is jbatsell@seattletimes.com