They'll be coming out of the company's satellite manufacturing facilities in El Segundo and Seal Beach. About 100 employees will receive the 60-day layoff notices this week, with another 650 to be notified at the end of June. Happy summer. Government delays in the awarding of several large contracts are behind the pink slips. From the Daily Breeze:

Boeing's layoffs come nearly a week after it lost to rival Lockheed Martin Corp. for a major Air Force satellite contract. The Global Positioning System IIIA contract - known as a follow-on contract because it builds on previous contracts - could be worth more than $3.5 billion. "Of course, last week's lost of the follow-on GPS series further complicates this," Boeing spokesman Joe Tedino said of the general market conditions.

[CUT]

The current layoffs are reminiscent of a larger series of job cuts that followed Boeing's purchase in 2000 of the El Segundo Satellite Development Center from Hughes Electronics Corp. That downsizing shaved about 3,000 jobs from the El Segundo operation amid a downturn in the commercial satellite market and the usual issues of integrating the two different companies.