A manufacturing company that has a big presence in Rochester is adding jobs, while it also tries to help its locally-based suppliers.
L3Harris Technologies is adding about 300 new employees in the Rochester area this year. That includes 175 already hired plus an additional 125 expected to be hired through the rest of this year. Many of those jobs involve technology, including engineers and people involved in manufacturing.
Dana Mehnert is president for L3Harris’s Communications Systems segment, which is headquartered in Rochester.
Even with the coronavirus pandemic, Mehnert said L3Harris has been busy continuing its production of military and public safety communications equipment.
“As an essential business we’ve had people to varying degrees working throughout the COVID crisis and clearly the world doesn’t stand still, so there’s still very high demand from our defense customers as well as our public safety customers,” Mehnert said.
L3Harris also has announced that it will be accelerating payments to small business suppliers in New York state, with many of them based in the Rochester area.
“We’re very reliant on our local suppliers here in New York state and the Rochester area and a lot of the smaller companies are more taxed, based on the COVID crisis, so we stepped forward to make early payments, about $100 million that was announced and a good portion of that is going to go to the 240 small businesses in New York state that are supporting us,” Mehnert said. L3Harris is also speeding up payments to small businesses suppliers across the country.
L3Harris also announced that it plans to invest $115 million in research and development initiatives in New York state this year.
