New contract creates BAE jobs boost

A new 30-year, £30billion project to build 3,000 F-35 fighter jets has been put in place by Lockheed Martin.

The company named BAE Systems as one of the key suppliers and secured as many as a thousand jobs in the process.

For every position secured within BAE at Samlesbury and Warton, two further jobs are secured in the supply chain throughout Lancashire.

In addition, around 2,000 BAE Systems employees will take a day’s unpaid leave each month in return for the aerospace giants securing 85 manufacturing jobs which had been under immediate threat.

The decision was taken after workers from Samlesbury and Warton took a vote. The day’s unpaid leave will take place every month for the next two years.

BAE’s Simon Shrouder said: “We've been negotiating with Unite throughout and we're very pleased to have protected these jobs with an outcome that is in everyone's interest.

"During this on-going process, there have been 1,387 potential job losses and we can confirm more than 1,000 have been mitigated against through various means such as voluntary redundancy, redeployment and people moving to other BAE companies overseas.”