Defense contractor Lockheed Martin said Thursday it will lay off 600 US workers in its missions systems and training business, in a move not linked to the government shutdown.
The defense and aerospace giant had put about 2,400 employees on leave without pay after a bitterly divided Congress failed to fund the 2014 fiscal year that began October 1, forcing a partial federal government shutdown that furloughed hundreds of thousands of civil servants and hit Pentagon contractors particularly hard.
Lockheed said it was “pleased” that Congress and the White House had reached an 11th-hour agreement late Wednesday to fund the government through January 15, ending the 16-day shutdown.
The Washington deal also extended the nation’s debt ceiling through February 7, staving off a potentially catastrophic default that could damage the US and global economies. The US Treasury had warned that it would run out of borrowing room by Thursday if the $17.6 trillion limit were not lifted.
But both the spending and debt ceiling provisions only last until early next year, leaving the prospect of further uncertainty over fiscal policy amid political wrangling between President Barack Obama’s Democrats and rival Republicans.
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