Thousands of private sector military workers could be sent home ©Bloomberg News UTC said that, if the shutdown were still in place on Monday, it would send home 2,000 staff from its Sikorsky helicopter division Thousands of private sector workers at military contractors look set to be sent home as early as next week if the partial shutdown of the US government continues, because of the knock-on effect of a key Pentagon agency laying off staff. It appears certain that contractors including BAE Systems, which runs substantial armoured vehicle manufacturing and ship repair operations in the US, will be forced to send workers home if the political stand-off in Washington continues because of the absence of workers at the Defence Contract Management Agency. United Technologies UTC has said 4,000 employees could be affected starting from next week. UTC would be the hardest hit contractor so far. Loren Thompson, a defence analyst with the Virginia-based Lexington Institute, said the shutdown's impact on companies was proving "quite uneven." "Some companies seem to have felt very little impact; some are suffering," Mr Thompson said. DCMA staff normally audit equipment production for Pentagon contracts, monitoring the workflow through each plant. UTC said that, if the shutdown were still in place on Monday, it would send home 2,000 staff from its Sikorsky helicopter division. A further 2,000 workers from its Pratt & Whitney aero engine unit would have to go home over the course of the week in the absence of a settlement. Another 1,000 staff would be affected if the political deadlock continued into November. Linda Hudson, chief executive of BAE Systems in the US, told staff in a letter that 1,000 workers in its intelligence and security sector were already "excused from work" at federal government sites affected by the shutdown. "Elsewhere across [BAE in the US] the impact has been less acute due to contractual and funding differences," she wrote. But with each passing day, the potential impact grows for all our employees as progress on Capitol Hill remains elusive. Ms Hudson guaranteed only that staff would be paid for the rest of the current week and that non-union staff and their families would continue to receive "certain benefits" for 90 days. The position of unionised staff would depend on their collective agreements. Most other big contractors would say only that they were talking to the Pentagon about how to proceed, although nearly all look likely to have to send some workers home soon. Boeing, which appears to have been little affected, said it was "watching developments closely." "The company has begun implementing contingency plans to deal with interruptions to normal operations," it said. Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest military contractor by sales, said it was "in discussions" with its customers over the impact. "Any effect on our operations, workforce and subcontractors during the government shutdown depends on individual contract terms," it said. Mr Thompson said that, the longer the shutdown played out, the more the system would stop functioning. "Production plants will stop," Mr Thompson said. Repair work will stop and service contracts will expire. The shutdown was the latest of a series of crises to hit military contractors, Mr Thompson said. They were already coping with a slowdown in work after the withdrawal from Iraq, last year's crisis over the federal budget and "sequestration" spending cuts, which are reducing 10 per cent from all Pentagon budgets. "This has become the most uncertain sector in the economy in terms of pace of demand," he said.