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Boeing layoffs so far total nearly 2,200
workers in Washington state
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[November 19, 2024]
SEATTLE (AP) — Boeing said in a notice filed with Washington's
Employment Security Department on Monday that it has so far laid off
2,199 workers in the state, among job cuts that will eventually total
about 17,000 across the company. |
Boeing employees work on the 737 MAX on the final assembly line at
Boeing's Renton plant, June 15, 2022, in Renton, Wash. (Ellen M.
Banner/The Seattle Times via AP, Pool, File) |
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The
aerospace giant announced in October that it planned to cut
about 10% of its workforce in the coming months as it struggles
to recover from financial and regulatory troubles as well as a
strike by its machinists that lasted nearly two months.
The planned cuts include workers at Boeing facilities across the
country, from Washington to Missouri to Arizona to South
Carolina, The Seattle Times reported. They also appeared to
impact workers in all three of Boeing’s divisions: commercial
airplanes, defense and global services.
Before the layoff notices delivered last week, Boeing had 66,000
workers in Washington.
Among the layoffs so far are notices that went out last week to
more than 400 members of Boeing's professional aerospace labor
union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in
Aerospace, or SPEEA. The workers will remain on the payroll
through mid-January.
Boeing’s unionized machinists began returning to work earlier
this month following the strike.
The strike strained Boeing’s finances. But CEO Kelly Ortberg
said on an October call with analysts that it did not cause the
layoffs, which he described as a result of overstaffing.
Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial
trouble since two crashes of its 737 Max jetliner killed 346
people in 2018 and 2019. The company's fortunes and reputation
took a further hit when a panel blew off the fuselage of an
Alaska Airlines plane in January.
Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the Federal Aviation
Administration capped production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per
month, a threshold Boeing had yet to reach when the machinists'
strike halted assembly lines.
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