US Defense Contractors Keep Most Plants Running Despite Outbreak

The Pentagon’s contractors have largely avoided widespread closings or “major impacts” so far from the coronavirus pandemic, according to a running tally compiled by its contracts management office.

Of 10,509 locations tracked or monitored by the Defense Contract Management Agency, 135 had closed at some point as of Wednesday. Forty-nine of those reopened after an average of about 10 days.

“These closures have generally been short-term in order to clean facilities” or to “reduce the potential exposure of employees,” agency spokesman Matthew Montgomery said in a statement.

The agency doesn’t track how many workers are affected, he said. And the numbers on closings don’t reflect defense contractors that have cut back their operations -- or the outsized impact of Boeing Co.’s shutdowns.

Boeing, the No. 2 U.S. defense contractor, has indefinitely halted assembly of the KC-46 refueling tanker and the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft at its facilities in Washington State, the initial U.S. center of the pandemic. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the Bloomberg website.

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