GE Aviation to expand its jet engine manufacturing

The Rutland Herald reported today that GE will break ground next month on a $4.5 million, 27,000-square-foot addition to its facility in Rutland Town, VT. GE Aviation handed its Rutland operation the assignment of making parts for the company's latest commercial aircraft jet engine. The company will also invest millions more on machinery and equipment to make the new blades. The GE plant has undergone several expansions over the years and is now 289,2933 square feet and has about 1,200 employees.
The spokesperson for GE said that with military orders on decline, the order has come along "just at the right time."

Speaking of a decline in military spending, the San Diego Business Journal just published an article on the 800 area-manufacturing jobs lost in the past year. The article sites a study by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce that says:

. . .manufacturing benefits the most from the business created by defense spending. Defense-related manufacturing supports more than 19,800 jobs and $4.5 billion in economic output. The professional, scientific and technical services sector was second, with military spending generating $2.4 billion, and more than 19,000 jobs for those sectors.

I was blogging about this last week, as presently we are seeing some US manufacturers struggling and some benefiting from this stage of the Iraq conflict.