NORTHROP TO ABOLISH 575 JOBS IN ANTELOPE VALLEY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Despite moves in Washington to extend production of B-2 stealth bombers, Northrop Grumman Corp. announced Wednesday it will lay off about 575 Antelope Valley workers this year - most before July.

President Clinton's announcement last week that he will use $493 million to convert a test plane into an operational bomber might keep some workers on the job several months longer in 2001, but provides no immediate additional work, a spokesman said.

``There really is not much employment impact. There's no impact right now. They may be able to defer some of the job reductions in (later) years,'' spokesman Jim Hart said.

Northrop will have no need to bring back laid-off employees even if Republican Bob Dole is elected president and fulfills his pledge made last Friday at the Pico Rivera B-2 plant to build 20 more bombers, Hart said.

``We would be able to do it with fewer people than even are there now,'' he said.

The layoffs of stealth bomber workers were among 2,100 layoffs planned before year's end in the corporation's Military Aircraft Systems Division, which also produces F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets for the U.S. Navy.

In the Antelope Valley, the layoffs will come primarily in production-line work at U.S. Air Force Plant 42, where about 3,100 people are employed, but some are expected at Edwards Air Force Base, where Northrop Grumman employs 600 workers, Hart said.

About 20 percent of the employees who will lose their jobs this year received layoff notices before the announcement Wednesday but are still working out their final 60 days, Hart said.

One of those is Ken Gerlits, a quality-assurance inspector who hopes he will be picked up for an inspection job for B-2 modification work that will continue after the last bomber is built.

``It's something that is not really a surprise in light of the political climate,'' he said of the layoffs. ``With our president adamantly against this program for so long, it was inevitable.''

He added: ``It's nice to place your hopes in the prospects of more aircraft being ordered, but unfortunately for the numbers of people being placed in the position of losing jobs in the next weeks and months, it'll be too late,'' Gerlits said. ``Even if they ordered an additional aircraft - or 20 aircraft - today, it would be several years before we saw the first one coming down the production line.''

In its announcement, the corporation said the layoffs are the result of declining production of B-2 stealth bombers - the last is expected to roll off the production line in early 1998. Cost-cutting on the F/A-18C/D Hornet production line and declining development work on the advanced F/A-18E/F Super Hornet also have had an impact.

The job cutbacks also reflect the elimination of duplication in support staff after the consolidation in January of the former Military Aircraft and B-2 divisions into the Military Aircraft Systems Division.

When the last of the first batch of 20 operational bombers is finished, Northrop Grumman expects to keep about 2,500 workers employed in Palmdale for three years to modernize 18 of the 20 operational bombers and convert the test plane.

The work would include installing new terrain-following radar, upgrading communications gear and adding capability to carry new weapons such as a bomb, now being tested, that precisely guides itself to its target using signals from satellites.

Northrop's Antelope Valley work force reached its peak in 1993 at more than 4,500. It fell to 3,900 by the end of 1994 and to 3,700 at the end of 1995.

In addition to the reductions planned for the rest of the year, 400 employees, including about 25 in the Antelope Valley, have been let go since January, the company said.