Textron increases job cuts at corporate offices

Providence-based Textron Inc. continues reducing its workforce, letting more people go this week as the company deals with the current economic environment.

Textron (TXT:NYSE) began trimming jobs in October, when the company began making cost-cutting moves, including shrinking jobs in its finance unit, after the credit crisis contributed to the company's first profit decline in more than four years.

Textron said it would cut 665 jobs from of its Cessna work force, 500 from its Bell Helicopter unit, and about 9 percent of the 1,200 jobs in its Textron Financial Corp. subsidiary. The company notified about 20 employees in Rhode Island at that time that they will lose their jobs as part of the plan to restructure Textron Financial.

More than 120 people, in all, lost their jobs in Textron's corporate offices in Rhode Island, Texas and Michigan, with some workers leaving this week. It's unclear whether the previously announced job cuts at Textron Financial are included in that number.

"At the onset of the economic downturn, the company put measures in place to curtail spending and contain costs," Textron spokeswoman Karen Gordon-Quintal, wrote in an e-mail to The Journal. "Regrettably, the economy has continued to pressure our business and we have made the very difficult decision to reduce our corporate workforce."