NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) - Newport News Shipbuilding has told employees that it will likely layoff more than 1,500 employees beginning this fall.
The layoffs will affect about seven percent of the shipyard's workforce.
Media outlets report that about 500 people will be cut in 2015, with another 1,000 losing their jobs in 2016.
The layoffs are the result of the shipyard finishing work on three aircraft carriers over the next 18 months. The USS Gerald R. Ford is expected it be delivered to the Navy in 2016, the same year an overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln is expected to be complete. The shipyard is also finishing up work on the inactivation of the USS Enterprise.
Newport News Shipbuilding is the nation's only designer, builder and refueler of Navy aircraft carriers.
