Newport News Shipbuilding to furlough 471 workers

Newport News Shipbuilding announced on Friday that it will furlough 471 shipbuilders for up to five months.

All impacted employees, which include salaried engineers and other workers, were notified Friday. For those impacted, Friday is their last day of work for the time being, and the furlough will be effective starting Monday. Although it is not a job termination, furloughed employees will not be paid for the time they’re out of work.

Todd Corillo, Huntington Ingalls Industry spokesperson for the Newport News Shipbuilding division, provided a statement on Friday.

“After careful review of our salaried workforce and business needs, we have furloughed 471 salaried shipbuilders across HII‘s Newport News Shipbuilding division,” the statement says. “This decision was not made lightly given its impact on affected team members. We take this step, however, to increase accountability and efficiency, and to improve overall performance in meeting our current and future commitments to the U.S. Navy.”

He said during the furlough, NNS will continuously evaluate business needs and its salaried workforce to determine whether continued furlough is warranted.

He emphasized that a furlough places an employee in a temporary non-work, non-pay status, but that it does not terminate the employee.

“We do not anticipate the furlough lasting longer than five months, but will reevaluate over the furlough period,” he said.

Furloughed workers received an informational packet from NNS’ human resources department Friday, noting that employees can cash out their accrued paid time off through June 1. In a Q&A section, the company said that it is furloughing employees because “shipbuilding is in a period of transition, and Newport News Shipbuilding is aligning its workforce to meet the challenges it faces to improve its performance. Accordingly, existing work is being reallocated.”

Decisions on who has been furloughed were based on “several factors, including an analysis of current and future work, as well as performance.” According to the information given to affected workers, they are not allowed to work as a contractor or leased employee for NNS during the furlough period, and no furloughed worker is being reallocated to another position at this time. Furloughed employees can file for state unemployment insurance, but the decision to award compensation is up to the state, NNS says.

NNS is the state’s largest industrial employer, employing about 26,000 people, and in 2024, the division hired about 3,000 more workers, part of an overall goal of hiring 16,000 more in the next decade to fulfill Navy shipbuilding needs.

HII CEO Chris Kastner said during a February earnings call he expects HII to hire around the same number of people this year. However, the company has shifted its focus from entry-level employees to hiring more experienced people “that have chosen shipbuilding as a career.”

In January, HII closed its purchase of a metal fabrication manufacturing facility in Goose Creek, South Carolina. The site, now part of NNS, spans 48 acres along the Cooper River and contains 480,000 square feet of manufacturing space. In March, it was reported that the site employed 475 workers.

The shipyard also announced that it would build two Gerald R. Ford-class carriers simultaneously in the same dry dock this year, the USS Enterprise and the USS Doris Miller. The two aircraft carriers are part of NNS’ $15.2 billion multi-ship contract awarded by the Navy in 2019. The Enterprise is expected to be delivered to the Navy in 2029, while Doris Miller is expected to be delivered in 2032.

And on April 30, the Department of Defense announced that HII and its NNS division was awarded a $1.2 billion contract modification for work on building two Virginia-class submarines.