OGDEN — Parker Aerospace this week laid off 56 workers, completing a round of job cuts announced in the fall in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedies.
The company is left with 773 workers who design, manufacture and service primary flight and engine-control systems and components, actuators and hydraulic systems and components for commercial aircraft.
The company, an operating segment of Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp., in the fall had laid off 129 regular and 30 temporary employees.
Mike Liptrot, director of human resources at the Ogden plant, said employees were told in the fall that more cut were likely this spring. Forty of the 56 affected workers had volunteered to take the company-offered severance package, he said.
The combined cut total amounts to 22.3 percent of the pre-October headcount.
"This is a direct result of the impact on the commercial travel business as the result of the incident in New York on 9/11," Liptrot said. "They began to slow down production of airplanes, and they don't need as many of our parts. It caused a very deep valley for us, in terms of orders."
Liptrot said the company believes the market has bottomed out. In fact, he said, Parker has several new programs in development, but they will not be in production until late in the 2003 fiscal year, which begins in July, or the 2004 fiscal year.
"At that time, there's a possibility we will be trying to find someone to replace some of these (laid-off) employees or getting some of these people to come back," Liptrot said.