Shipbuilder set to shed 500 more jobs

Government-owned shipbuilder ASC will shed another 500 jobs by the end of next year if it doesn't get more work.

ASC executive Mark Lamarre said the company had already cut 300 jobs since May, most of them being sub-contractors.

"We have now reached our peak and are heading to a reasonably steady decline that will accelerate at the end of 2016," he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.

ASC, formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation, has 2600 full-time workers with 900 working on submarine maintenance and 1350 on air warfare destroyers in Adelaide, and 342 at the sub maintenance yard in Western Australia.

The company also employs a significant number of sub-contractors, including about 450 on the AWD project.

Like other shipbuilders, the company is set to run out of work at the end of current shipbuilding projects.

Mr Lamarre said there were opportunities for future work in projects now being considered by the government, although the company would need to move quickly.

There was a real opportunity with the proposed new offshore patrol vessels, which will replace the Navy's Armidale-class patrol boats with a larger more capable ship.

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the government's continuous build program for new warships was unambiguously good news.

"This is obviously a very exciting opportunity for ASC," he said.