President Biden on Tuesday visited Lockheed Martin’s Troy, Alabama-based factory as the U.S. ramps up production of Javelin antitank missiles for Ukraine to help the country fight Russian invasion, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Lockheed is looking for workers to help build missiles at its Alabama plant amid a labor shortage nationwide. The company has 26 vacancies at the factory, including engineers, missile assemblers and quality supervisors.
“Being the arsenal of democracy also means good-paying jobs for American workers in Alabama, in the states all across America, where defense equipment is manufactured and assembled,” Presient Biden said Tuesday during his visit to the Lockheed factory.
“Two hundred and sixty-five people here at this plant are directly employed working on the Javelin program. All told, Lockheed Martin has brought nearly 3,000 jobs to Alabama,” the president added.
A senior defense official said the U.S. has enough stocks of Javelins but wants to keep the missile production line open in support of Ukraine. According to the White House, the U.S. has transferred more than 5,000 Javelins to Ukraine.
“We had not been buying them but we’re working again with the contractor to see what has to be done to continue to keep that line going and open because it has proven to be an important piece of Ukraine’s self-defense,” said the official.
