Navy and army redundancies come at a difficult time
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When the person you're about to sack is on the front-line in a warzone you have to pick your moment to break the bad news.
The news redundancy announcement includes this extra proviso about when redundancy notices will be served:
"On the date the redundancy notices were issued, no personnel preparing for, deployed on, or returning from combat operations or on post-tour leave will be made compulsorily redundant."So if you're in sight of bullets, you're at least safe from the P45.
But The Former First Sea Lord Jonathan Band dismisses that particular requirement as the Navy simply playing a game, saying that there would be many sailors at sea today who would learn that their particular branch was in the firing line.
"The Navy has innate, strong guts" he said, "but there will be many people feeling fragile, and some of them will be quite bitter."
Just take a look at the numbers:
Royal Navy: 1,600 redundancies - to include ratings and officers to rank of captain. Officers from engineering, medical, warfare and logistics branches as well as junior and senior ratings from a variety of branches.
They will lose 121 officers in general service, subs and fleet air arm
274 senior ratings
Up to 15 fixed wing pilots
Sailors have until next month to volunteer for redundancy.
In September, the Ministry of Defence will announce which sailors will be going. Volunteers will serve 6 months notice, while non-volunteers will serve 12 months notice
If 1,600 do not volunteer for redundancy, the navy will enforce compulsory redundancies.
The government's Strategic Defence and Security Review said the navy must lose 5,000 sailors by 2015.
Another tranche of naval redundancies will be announced later this year.
A navy spokesman said a third tranche may be announced in March 2012 if it is required.
By way of a contrast, it's worth comparing the huge efforts being made with the carrier project - a total of 10,000 people building them, including VT/BAE in Portsmouth.
There's an excellent BBC on-line feature here that also points out that 25,000 jobs have been created in making parts for the American F35 planes that will go on it, and many of those are in the South of England.
The Army announced it will make 1,000 redundancies in its first tranche of job cuts, including 150 Gurkhas.
Around 7,000 soldiers will be axed by 2015 in the SDSR.
The Royal Air Force announced plans to lay off 2,700 staff last month in a similarly staggered programme of cuts.
They have won many battles, but it's the accountants who seem to be winning the war.
Welcome to the hustings! I'm Peter Henley, the BBC's political reporter in the south of England. From parish councils in Sussex, to European politics in Oxford, this is the blog for you. 
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