Babcock Naval Services has announced plans to cut 225 jobs on the Clyde because of a gap in submarine maintenance work.
The company said the move follows a "work-flow dip" between decommissioning of Swiftsure Class nuclear submarines and work on the new Astute Class.
It hopes to achieve the cuts through voluntary redundancy and the closure of vacant posts.
The GMB trade union said it was a mistake to lose skilled workers.
Babcock said it had made every effort to avoid redundancies.
"We have been reluctant to reduce our workforce, because we understand the impact on individuals and their families and on our local communities in general"
Managing director John Howie said: "We have known about the shortfall in workload for some time, but despite considerable efforts, we have been unable to find sufficient appropriate work to cover the period until we undertake mainstream work on the new Astute Class submarines.
"We have been reluctant to reduce our workforce, because we understand the impact on individuals and their families and on our local communities in general.
"We hope that compulsory redundancies will not be necessary, and we will continue to work closely with trade unions to protect key skills and to redeploy people wherever possible. We will also help employees to find alternative work, if they wish that."
Jim Moohan, GMB union's senior organiser in the engineering and shipbuilding sector, said: "We can ill afford to lose skills and experience to carry out this kind of highly specialised work.
"I would hate to think that we are turning the clock back by not retaining these skills when there could be an upsurge in work, hopefully in the short term, and an opportunity to redeploy these individuals.
"We will pay the price if we fail to see the necessity of having the proper experience and knowledge at hand."
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