Jane Edwards
Austal plans to employ about 1,000 additional workers to staff a new facility that will be established at its shipyard in Alabama as part of efforts to accommodate work on nuclear-powered submarines, Defense News reported Friday.
The Australia-based company is producing key components for Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines.
“We’re putting a new building in that’s going to be dedicated fully to submarine work,” Larry Ryder, vice president for business development and external affairs at Austal, told the publication in an interview.
“It’s going to be about 1,000 jobs of output, supporting the submarine-industrial base,” Ryder added.
Austal’s shipyard secured a Defense Production Act grant worth $50 million to build the facility and supplemented the DPA funding with in-house funding of $50 million.
The facility is expected to be operational in 2024.
