Collins Aerospace to lay off 37 Cedar Rapids employees

Collins Aerospace will lay off 37 employees in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 1, according to a WARN notice filed with the state this week.

The layoffs will be in Collins Aerospace’s Cedar Rapids-based Mission Systems unit, spokeswoman Pam Tvrdy-Cleary told The Gazette.

Collins Aerospace President Stephen Timm told investors in May the Charlotte, N.C.-based company upped its cost-cutting goal from $600 million by 2025 to $1 billion.

About half of those cuts already happened, Tvrdy-Cleary said at the time.

Timm told The Gazette later that week the two Collins Aerospace business units based in Cedar Rapids — mission systems and avionics — have the opportunity to “really lead” the company’s pandemic recovery, though.

The notice of layoffs comes about a month after Collins Aerospace boasted “much, much better” second quarter results than anticipated during its parent company Raytheon Technologies’ quarterly earnings call.

“Although the commercial aerospace market is improving, we have seen a decrease in military customer demand for some programs in Mission Systems,” a company email obtained by The Gazette said.

It will be Collins Aerospace’s fourth mass layoff in Iowa since last September, according to the state’s WARN notice log. About 180 employees in Cedar Rapids, Decorah and Bellevue have been affected.

Collins Aerospace currently has 346 job postings in Cedar Rapids, according to its website.

The company has about 9,000 employees in Cedar Rapids and Coralville.

Comments: (319) 398-8394; john.steppe@thegazette.com