Boeing has laid off 2,199 workers in Washington, according to a notice filed Monday with the state’s Employment Security Department.
The cuts are part of a companywide effort to reduce Boeing’s workforce by 10%, or 17,000 workers. Managers began scheduling meetings and delivering pink slips over three days last week, starting on Wednesday.
The cuts were far-reaching, hitting workers at Boeing facilities across the country, from Washington to Missouri to Arizona to South Carolina. 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.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg announced the job cuts in October, part of a sweeping announcement that included changes to the company’s production plans and a sobering directive that the company must “reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality.”
Ortberg’s announcement came as Boeing’s Puget Sound factories sat idle amid a strike by the company’s unionized Machinists workforce. But the job cuts were not a result of the eight-week strike, which ended earlier this month, Ortberg said on an October analysts call.
The layoffs were a result of overstaffing and targeted at reducing inefficiencies in the company, he continued. The cuts were not expected to hit members of the local Machinists union.
But the layoffs did impact Boeing’s professional aerospace union, which includes technicians and engineers. The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEEA, said last week that 438 members had received layoff notices.
The union’s local chapter has 17,000 members who are largely based in Washington, with some in Oregon, California and Utah.
Most employees who were notified of the layoffs will remain on payroll through mid-January, Boeing said last week. The notice the company filed with Washington’s Employment Security Department listed Dec. 20 as the layoff start date.
Laid-off employees will receive career transition services and subsidized health care benefits for up to three months, Boeing said. Workers will also receive severance pay, which will typically be one week of pay for every year of service.
Echoing Ortberg’s sentiment last month, a Boeing spokesperson said Wednesday, on the first day layoff notices were delivered, “as previously announced, we are adjusting our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and a more focused set of priorities. We are committed to ensuring our employees have support during this challenging time.”
The company is considering a second round of job cuts “if needed,” according to an internal slide deck shared with The Seattle Times. Those workers will be notified in December and remain on payroll through mid-February.
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