Textron's Cessna to cut 1,300 jobs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Textron Inc's Cessna unit said it would cut another 1,300 jobs, underscoring the face of deteriorating demand for corporate aircraft and leaving the company with about half of its workforce remaining.
Last week the diversified U.S. manufacturer said it planned to announce more job cuts as order cancellations continued.
The company is the world's largest maker of business jets. At its height is employed about 16,000 workers.
Business jets have become something of a symbol of corporate excess in the current downturn, after the heads of big Detroit automakers outraged Congress last year by flying to Washington in private planes to ask for government money.
Karen Gordon Quintal, a spokeswoman for Providence, Rhode Island-based Textron, said the cutbacks will affect all Cessna's facilities. Cessna, based on Wichita, Kansas., has manufacturing facilities in Independence, Kansas, Columbus, Georgia and Chihuahua. It also has 10 service centers in the United States and Europe.
The first 800, 60-day layoff notices are expected to go out within a week. The remaining 500 workers are expected to receive their lay off notices when they return from a previously scheduled furlough.
The company also said it would impose an additional company wide three-week furlough.
The recession has posed a double whammy to Textron, which is working to radically downsize its finance business and coping with a simultaneous sharp falloff in demand for aircraft.
Textron in April slashed its profit target for the year by about half.