WASHINGTON -- Employment in the defense and aerospace industry is expected to fall next year to its lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, the leader of an industry trade group said yesterday.
In his annual year-end review and forecast luncheon at the Capital Hilton yesterday, Aerospace Industries Association President Donald Fuqua said the industry is expected to shed 34,000 jobs in 1995, after losing 71,000 this year.
Speaking to more than 500 officials of defense and areospace companies, including Westinghouse Electric Corp., Martin Marietta Corp. and AlliedSignal Inc., which all have sizable operations in Maryland, Mr. Fuqua said President Clinton's recent decision to boost defense spending by $25 billion over the next six years would do little to ease their problems in the near future.
Most of that money, Mr. Fuqua said, would be used to maintain military readiness, which involves the defense industry only tangentially, and to improve the quality of life for military personnel. It does not involve the purchase of new weapons or other equipment.
At the end of the six-year period, he said, the proposal would add new funding for military equipment modernization. "But that's a promise, not a reality -- and if it does materialize, it will be after the turn of the century.
"Defense officials termed this proposal 'good news' for modernization,' " he said. "If that's the good news, I can't wait to hear the bad news."
In fact, the Pentagon followed the president's proposal with a call for cuts of almost $8 billion in spending on weaponry over the six years, he noted.
The trade association foresees a continued declined in defense sales for the remainder of the decade, Mr. Fuqua said, but there is still "a big question mark" for the years after 2000.
The Pentagon's spending cuts have slammed Maryland's economy, which is the fifth-most dependent on the nation's military contracts.
Three companies alone -- Martin Marietta, Westinghouse and AAI Corp. -- have eliminated about 12,000 jobs in the state since defense employment peaked in 1988.
For the nation, the association predicts that employment among defense and aerospace companies will fall to 802,000 next year, the lowest since 1955.
Since employment peaked in 1988 at 1.3 million, the industry has eliminated 36 percent of its workers.
Breaking the industry down into segments, the trade group forecasts a 3 percent, or $1 billion, decline in military aircraft sales next year. The missile business is expected to drop by 10 percent.
Space industry sales, another sizable business in Maryland, are projected to fall for the second year in a row, to $27.8 billion from $28.5 billion.
Civil aircraft and parts sales are projected to decline 2 percent, to $25.8 billion from $26.3 billion.
Despite his predictions of a slight decline, Mr. Fuqua said civil aviation is one of the industry's bright spots. He said airlines around the world must replace thousands of older planes, after several years of financial losses that have delayed their purchases.
He said there would be no immediate burst of new orders for jetliners, but sales should begin to pick up within the next two years.