Hampton Roads Partnership:
Over 300 jobs will be lost in Hampton Roads thanks to recently declared layoffs by major defense contractors, according to an article in HRMilitary. Lockheed Martin has notified the Commonwealth that they will be letting go of 150 employees, 92 in Norfolk and Suffolk, in addition to 65 in Hampton, while Luke and Associates will most likely layoff 182 at Langley Air Force Base.
Craig Quigley, Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, insists that these job losses are not an ominous precursor to others yet to come, but rather the expected result of the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) closure. “These actions represent arriving at something of an equilibrium from the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command. When that organization ended in August 2011, no existing contracts were cancelled. Rather, they were allowed to run their course and some of them are now ending. One of four things will happen as contracts expire: the work will be re-competed, the work will be done in-house, the work will be transferred elsewhere, or the work will no longer be done.”
An article on the job losses in The Virginian-Pilot said that 1,200 military personnel and civilians, and about 700 private contractors work in Joint Staff Hampton Roads. For those seeking new work during these job losses, a transition center, funded by a DoD grant, was set up in Suffolk a year ago.
I really hate how the media compares the new Stimulus plan to the plan that was used to create they highway system. The main difference: The highway system plan had a concrete goal: Create a Highway System. The Stimulus plan, has no such goal. Its goal is more creative: to stimulate the economy. This plan has way too much money going to to intangible things. I agree, tax breaks are important to aid the economy. When you add up items like Health Care ($137 billion) and welfare ($77 billion), you get $214 billion in spending that should have been paid for already. welfare does not help the economy. It helps those already affected by the economy support themselves. I would take some of that money and put it in a fund for education of those on welfare. That would empower the poor to move up the economic ladder by themselves. Also, less than $50 billion is actually going to infrastructure improvements. Perhaps if we spent more on updating our infrastructure and improving our efficiency and technology, we could come out of the recession better than we were before. How it stands, however, we will come out of this recession in good health and on food stamps.