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Honeywell planning job cuts to North American operations

One of its facilities, formerly Com Dev International, is in Cambridge, Ont. Details on any reductions earmarked for Cambridge weren’t available yesterday; a company statement didn’t identify specific locations, or numbers of employees, that will be affected. Honeywell Aerospace is based in Phoenix.

“The global space and satellite industry has seen a general downturn over the last several years, resulting in reduced customer demand,” read the statement.

“We’ve made the difficult decision to realign our manufacturing and engineering workforces in the United States and Canada that support our space business to better match current market requirements. We will use attrition and voluntary departures to mitigate this reduction and offer severance and outplacement services to all eligible employees.”

Honeywell completed its $455-million purchase of Com Dev last year. The manufacturer of space hardware was founded in 1974 in Montreal, and moved to Cambridge in 1979. Last year, it was estimated that about 800 people work at the facility on Sheldon Drive.

As part of the deal, Com Dev subsidiary ExactEarth was spun off as a standalone, publicly traded data services company.

The Honeywell statement on the job reductions indicated the company remains optimistic despite the downturn.

“We are constantly looking for new growth opportunities and remain confident in the long-term outlook of the aerospace business,” the statement said.

Honeywell Aerospace teams in Cambridge and Ottawa are involved in producing hardware and software for the high-profile James Webb Space Telescope, billed as the premier observatory of the next decade. It is expected to be launched in October, 2018. Com Dev’s work on components that will be used on the telescope dates back to 2001.