Northrop Grumman to pick up half of laid-off VITA workers
After the Virginia Information Technologies Agency laid off 51 employees last week, the holder of its main outsourcing contract said it would rehire almost half of them.
Northrop Grumman Corp. said it plans to rehire up to 25 of the state employees.
Those who were laid off were “managed employees” who opted in 2006 to remain with the state while reporting to Northrop Grumman, which has been reimbursing the state for their salaries. They were the last of the more than 210 state IT workers who chose to stay with the state in name only after more than 550 other state employees moved over to Northrop Grumman.
The layoffs came as part of a planned reorganization. The company’s spokesman, Matt McQueen, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the layoffs were necessary to allow the company to hire employees with certain skills to private sector jobs under a $3 billion, 13-year contract to manage information systems for up to 89 Virginia state agencies.
“Some of the technology professionals were not necessarily in a job category the program needed them to be in,” McQueen said.
The rehired employees will work in different roles at Northrop Grumman and will not focus on providing services to VITA. As a part of the realignment, Northrop Grumman also laid off some of its own employees.
The employees will officially be terminated from the state payroll July 1 — the beginning of the next fiscal year for the state — however, they are currently on leave. Terminated employees are being offered severance packages under the Workforce Transition Act.
According to VITA’s Eric Link, the executive director of legal and legislative services, Northrop Grumman informed the state technology agency that it was seeking a reduction in numbers to better align with the staffing and skill requirements in the state contract. So far, Northrop Grumman has reportedly extended offers to 10 of the terminated employees, and seven have already accepted.
Read more at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
