Defence firm BAE Systems cuts hundreds of jobs in Victoria One of Australia's largest defence companies, BAE Systems, will make more than 400 workers redundant. The hull of the first Landing Helicopter Dock LHD arrives at BAE Systems shipyard in Williamstown, Victoria. Picture: Mark Stewart Source: Leader DEFENCE company BAE Systems says about 450 Victorian workers will be made redundant after the loss of a major contract - but some will be redeployed. A BAE spokeswoman said this morning "speculation" about employee numbers at the global defence company based in Edinburgh, north of Adelaide, was incorrect because such changes were not out of the ordinary. "We have 5500 employees located across regional and rural Australia working on a wide range of projects," she said. Because much of our work is project-based, we have people rolling on and rolling off all the time. Staff changes are part of the normal project life-cycle and we aim to manage these through a combination of redeployment and natural staff turnover. According to a report in The Australian newspaper this morning, the Australian arm of BAE Systems revealed the loss of a maintenance contract would affect about 450 staff. The Land Material Maintenance contract, which is expected to be awarded to Transfield from July 1, is for the maintenance of the Defence Department's land-based equipment such as military vehicles. The BAE spokeswoman said the company would be working alongside Transfield with the aim to employ the workers hit with redundancies, because they had the skill set to do the job.