Electric Boat to hire 900 workers
Navy submarine demand is booming
GROTON – The president of Electric Boat on Monday delivered what’s become an annual refrain of good economic news: Submarine construction is booming, with 900 workers expected to be hired in Connecticut in 2019.
“So again this year I’m pleased to be able to provide a message of positivity and optimism for both what’s being accomplished at Electric Boat, but also for what we look forward to in the future,” Jeffrey Geiger, president of the subsidiary of General Dynamics Corp., said at EB’s annual outlook meeting in Groton.
Electric Boat, benefiting from U.S. military strategy that’s turning to the oceans to check Russian and Chinese ambitions, surpassed 17,000 employees for the first time since 1992, up by
1,000 last year, Geiger said. Of that, about 12,000 are in Connecticut. It hired 2,241 workers last year and expects to bring on a total of 1,400 this year, with 500 in Quonset Point, R.I., in addition to the 900 in Connecticut.
Employment is expected to reach 20,000 in the decade of the 2020s, Geiger said.
Geiger, speaking to about 100 business owners and representatives, local officials and others, said Electric Boat expects between 4 percent and 5 percent growth in revenue over the next few years.
Electric Boat is building two Virginia-class attack submarines a year and is designing the ballistic Columbia-class submarines to be ordered from 2021 to 2035, replacing the aging Ohio-class subs.
Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., called southeastern Connecticut “a real center of growth.”
In an interview, he said federal military funding for Electric Boat is secure. Department of Defense spending was enacted by Congress and signed in September by President Donald Trump.
“We have stability in the budget,” said Courtney, whose district includes Electric Boat’s Groton shipyard.
Ironically, the budget certainty for EB contrasts with a murkier outlook last year when the federal government shut down for a weekend in January. Geiger said then that budget policy is a “good deal less clear at the moment.”
The current federal shutdown that began Dec. 22 is the longest ever.
Gov. Ned Lamont, who also attended Monday’s meeting, pitched Connecticut’s workforce as a source of advanced manufacturing employees.
“Companies around the world are in a global search for talent," he said. "And I’ve got to make sure Electric Boat should look no further than the state of Connecticut.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal warned that adversaries such as Russia and China are “wasting no time in seeking to catch us.”
“I cannot emphasize to you how significant these submarines are to our national security. Every year, ever more so,” he said.
Electric Boat has announced plans to spend $850 million to significantly expand its Groton shipyard as the Navy demands more submarines as part of a military strategy that looks to the oceans to counter threats from China and Russia.
Construction of the expanded shipyards is expected to begin in 2019 and extend to 2023, in time to receive submarine modules — portions of the vessels — that are built at Quonset Point and shipped to Groton for assembly and construction.
General Dynamics also is spending about $850 million to upgrade and expand its shipyard in Quonset Point.
Connecticut is benefiting from an increasingly strong manufacturing sector, specifically contractors that make components equipping military and commercial jets, helicopters and submarines. Jobs in manufacturing have increased every month, without interruption since October 2016, according to the state Department of Labor. Manufacturers posted 164,300 jobs last November, the most recent month available, registering a 1.5 percent increase since November 2017.