More than 450 local workers soon will be out of work as several public companies in the San Fernando, Conejo and Antelope valleys recently announced staff cuts amid cancelled work contracts or restructuring efforts. Boeing Inc., The Cheesecake Factory, ITT Exelis, Sanyo North America, and MetLife Home Loans began the layoffs in February and will continue through the year, signaling that the region’s economy is still struggling to recover. Cuts to the U.S. defense budget, for example, have Boeing and ITT Exelis scaling back operations and trimming workers. Fifty three employees from Boeing’s Flight Test Operations are being cut with the end of testing on the Airborne Laser Test Bed system for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency. The positions include engineers, managers, laboratory technicians, industrial security, and technicians. Some of the employees affected may be assigned to other Boeing programs, the company said. The airborne laser program has been in development since the mid-1990s but never advanced beyond the testing phase. The program had a Boeing 747 jet equipped with a laser gun on its nose to destroy enemy missiles. ITT Exelis will close its 150,000-square-foot Thousand Oaks manufacturing facility by the end of the year, affecting about 147 engineering, assembly, and management positions. About 75 other positions will be reassigned to ITT Gilfillan in Van Nuys, said Tim White, a spokesman for ITT Exelis. The Thousand Oaks facility made equipment used by the U.S. military to jam roadside bombs and did booming business during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, White said. “We are on the other side of that effort and with the draw down (in war zones) there is not as much of a need,” he said, noting Exelis will begin vacating the facility late this month. ITT Exelis isn’t the only closure in the region. The digital solutions division of Sanyo North America also will close by the end of the year. Staggered layoffs will begin this spring with about 40 employees being let go, said Aaron Fowles, director of corporate communications. A total of 74 employees will be laid off, according to Fowles and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act notice filed with the state. The closure is the result of a buyout. Sanyo was acquired by mega-electronics manufacturer Panasonic in 2010. Sanyo and Panasonic had overlapping product lines that brought about consolidation, Fowles said. The digital solutions division occupied a 67,000-square foot facility in Chatsworth where the service and sales staff handled digital cameras, projectors and home appliances such as microwave ovens and toaster ovens. Administrative functions such as accounting, information technology and legal also operated out of the Chatsworth office and those functions will move to San Diego, Fowles said. New York-based MetLife, meanwhile, is reducing the types of home mortgages it offers as lending practices are scrutinized under new government regulations. In January, MetLife said the company would no longer accept new applications for forward mortgages, but continue to originate reverse mortgages. A total of 54 employees from the company’s residential mortgage division in Agoura Hills are affected by the decision. The MetLife decision is likely a good one, said Bill Watkins, executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University. “As home prices are still falling that business has gotten harder to do,” Watkins said. “It would make sense that’s not what they are going to specialize in.” The Cheesecake Factory Inc., the Calabasas-based operator of upscale casual dining restaurants, will lay off 135 employees from it West Coast bakery in Calabasas in April. The company will produce fewer products from its Calabasas plant, said Alethea Rowe, senior director of marketing and public relations for The Cheesecake Factory. “We are doing what we can to assist laid off staff, including offering staff members the opportunity to transfer into open positions at the company’s East Coast Bakery in North Carolina,” Rowe said, in an emailed statement. Reporters Andrew Khouri and Angela Melero contributed to this story.