L3Harris Technologies completed its acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne, creating a new fourth business segment within the company. The deal, which was signed in December 2022, emphasizes L3Harris’ commitment to fortifying the defense industrial base, fostering competition, and accelerating innovation in the critical propulsion systems domain.
Chair and CEO of L3Harris, Christopher E. Kubasik, expressed enthusiasm about the integration, stating, “I’m thrilled to welcome more than 5,000 employees to the L3Harris team today. With national security at the forefront, we’re combining our resources and expertise with Aerojet Rocketdyne’s propulsion and energetics capabilities to ensure that the Department of Defense and civil space customers can address critical mission needs globally.”
In addition to the acquisition, L3Harris revealed that Ross Niebergall will take on the role of President of the Aerojet Rocketdyne segment within the company. Niebergall emphasized the importance of delivering innovative and agile solutions to meet customer demands.
The acquisition strategically expands the L3Harris portfolio, introducing a substantial long-cycle backlog and a wide range of expertise. This new capacity opens doors to opportunities in areas such as missile defense systems, hypersonics, and advanced rocket engines. Under the acquisition, Aerojet Rocketdyne will operate as Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company.
Layoffs: Kape Technologies
Kape Technologies, the cybersecurity firm behind ExpressVPN, reduced its workforce by approximately 12%, joining over 900 tech companies that have implemented layoffs recently.
“To ensure we are set up in the long term to continue providing our customers with the best protection in the industry, we recently conducted an organizational restructuring. Following a careful evaluation, this included the difficult decision to implement a reduction in force, resulting in approximately 180 employees, around 12% of our workforce, being made redundant across the business,” Kape Technologies said in a statement.
Hiring: Veterans Health Administration
The Veterans Health Administration is approaching the end of a record year for hiring, having recruited over 43,000 new employees in fiscal year 2023, exceeding its target of 52,000 new hires by September 30. Additionally, VHA is retaining employees at a higher rate than anticipated, with a workforce growth of 4.9% compared to the goal of 3% for the fiscal year. VHA is currently reviewing its hiring targets for fiscal year 2024, and the new goals are expected to be released within the next few months.
Cleared Employer at Work: Clearancejobs
Opportunity to Watch
Leidos has joined forces with Microsoft in a strategic collaboration agreement, leveraging their respective strengths to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) transformation in the public sector. The focus is on developing generative AI solutions that enhance organizational efficiency, productivity, and cross-domain applications. This collaboration aims to utilize the latest cloud and AI technologies to co-innovate and solve complex challenges faced by public sector organizations worldwide, building a partner ecosystem committed to responsible and efficient problem-solving. Leidos’ successful migration of critical support applications to Microsoft’s Azure Government cloud environment has already showcased the potential of this collaboration, supporting the U.S. Navy’s Next Generation Enterprise Network program with increased efficiency and security.
Leidos and Microsoft are committed to building a partner ecosystem that can identify customer challenges and work together responsibly and efficiently to solve them.
