Restructure Defense Programs And Lose Some Jobs

Two little articles on Sunday about areas that will be hard hit when their respective governments change tack on defense programs. There will be many more of these as the UK and American defense budgets begin their long winding down from the post-9/11 peaks. It is funny, other then the usual press releases there are hardly any news about areas gaining jobs when large defense contracts are awarded.

First at a short piece in The Scotsman the English Ministry of Defense along with their prime test and evaluation contractor, QinetiQ, plan to automate a range in the North of the country. Turns out that ninety percent of the people in this area work for QinetiQ. Cutting any job will have a severe effect on the local economy with most people moving away for other work. The fact that without the government funding most of these people wouldn’t be there to begin with is kind of lost. The Scottish economy based on fishing, farming and ship building kind of died off years ago.

Another is in The Washington Post and will become more common in the U.S. press if the full Obama and Gates’ budget is executed. This is about the fact that other then Lockheed Martin Owego, NY really has not industry. With the end of the VH-71 there will be quite a few jobs lost there as we have already written about. The local Congressman are fighting for the program and there may end up being some compromise on the use of the first nine aircraft already purchased.

This is always the case with this type of spending. Jobs matter the most to the local area and defense contracts provide high-paying effective ones. In Owego and Norther Scotland these are far-and-few between. The world’s economic situation doesn’t help this situation. This has been an argument for-and-against the defense budget since the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process began. If you want to use the defense budget as a jobs program, then fine, but don’t expect high efficiency or great results. Socialism keeps people employed but it is not always fulfilling.