Shipbuilder ASC sheds jobs in Adelaide

Adelaide shipbuilder ASC will shed more than 100 jobs by next month and South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon says it's a "disgrace."

The government-owned shipbuilder revealed on Thursday that it will cut 130 shipbuilding jobs by the end of February as the Air Warfare Destroyer project winds down.

ASC said it would offer redundancy packages to the outgoing workers over the next six weeks.

It said it will explore ways to redeploy some workers in other opportunities, including the Offshore Patrol Vessel project due to begin at its Osborne facility in 2018.

But Senator Nick Xenophon said the job losses will be devastating for families and insisted the cuts could have been prevented through better government planning.

"It's nothing short of an avoidable disgrace," he said.

"It's bad management and it's unforgivable that ships that could have been built here in Australia are being built overseas."

He said the federal government had not delivered on its promise of continuous shipbuilding in Adelaide and it would cost workers as well as taxpayers.

"The economic inefficiencies of stop-start shipbuilding are enormous, let alone the human costs involved," Senator Xenophon said.

"Every time you lay off people you not only break their hearts, you also end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars more when you have to rehire people and retrain them."

ASC said the latest cuts will not affect its submarine workforce or planning for the future submarine project.