The cuts follow upon a reduction of 245 workers set for May 19. Boeing is responding to a slowdown in aircraft sales and fierce competition. According to a memo from John Hamilton, the vice-president of engineering, the new layoffs will start on June 23. The memo said: “We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations. We anticipate this will impact hundreds of engineering employees. Additional reductions in engineering later this year will be driven by our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition. In an ongoing effort to increase overall competitiveness and invest in our future, we are reducing costs and matching employment levels to business and market requirements.”The airplane unit of Boeing already has reduced engineers by several hundred from January through March through voluntary redundancies.
Boeing is a multinational American corporation with headquarters in Chicago but has a large manufacturing unit in Everett Washington. It manufactures not just airplanes but rotorcraft, rockets, and satellites that it sells worldwide. It also provides leasing and support services. It is among the largest global aircraft manufacturers. According to 2015 statistics it is the second largest defense contractor in the world. Boeing donated one million to pay for the Trump inauguration. The company also has a factory that manufactures the Dreamliner in South Carolina. It is not clear if it will be impacted by the job cuts.
Since the start of 2016 Boeing has dropped 1,332 jobs from its Seattle-area manufacturing center according to the union representing the workers. Over the past year, Boeing has trimmed back its employment in the Washington state facilities by 9 percent to 70,640 employees in 2016. The total number of employees shrank by 7.6 percent to 146,962 since March of 2016. Revenue for 2016 also sank 1.6 percent in 2016 to $94.6 billion. As sales have slumped Boeing is trimming expenses and tried to lower supplier costs as well as shedding workers. Boeing shares rose significantly last Monday by 1.9 percent to close at $179.02 on the New York Stock exchange.
