EADS says no jobs relocated to U.S. in tanker plan

PARIS (Reuters) - European aerospace group EADS (EAD.PA) said on Wednesday that no jobs would be relocated from Europe to the United States as a result of its deal to build aerial refueling tankers there.

U.S. contractor Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N), which led a winning bid to supply 179 tankers based on Airbus airliners to the U.S. Air Force, said earlier that assembly and militarization of the planes would result in the "in-sourcing" of about 2,000 jobs from Europe to the United States.

The EADS spokesman said in clarifying the statement that these would be new U.S. jobs and not posts previously located in Europe, since the U.S. tanker project was a new development for EADS. EADS is the parent company of plane maker Airbus.

"No jobs will be relocated from EADS Europe to North America," the spokesman said.

EADS says the project involves 1,300 assembly line jobs in Alabama, where the tanker will be assembled and 2,000 jobs there for militarization work to be carried out by Northrop.

Both companies say the tanker program will support a total of 25,000 jobs in the United States spread among the two main contractors and their national suppliers.

The figure is contested by some lawmakers in Congress who backed the losing bidder in the tanker contest, Boeing Co

(BA.N).

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Andre Grenon)