More than a month after rumors of a buyout by Britain's GKN plc first surfaced, American plane-parts maker Spirit AeroSystems (SPR 2.14%) still hasn't sold itself -- but it's still laying off workers.
Back in July, Spirit announced plans to lay off approximately 360 salaried support staff and management employees at its Kansas and Oklahoma facilities. Today, Spirit fulfilled part of that promise when it confirmed that it has issued official notices of layoffs to 150 employees in Wichita. Laid-off workers are being offered lump sum severances, plus "career transition services" to help them find new jobs.
Other workers are volunteering to lay themselves off -- retiring or quitting voluntarily -- in return for lump-sum severance payments and "enhanced" health-care and pension benefits.
Meanwhile, even as the company trims hundreds of salaried and management positions from its payroll, Spirit says it is hiring "several hundred" factory workers who get paid by the hour, including assembly, composite, metals and process mechanics, and quality inspectors, in order to ensure the company has the workers on hand to fulfill its $38 billion backlog of work to be done.
