Slowing aircraft sales sees Boeing lay off more engineers

Following on from the announcement that 245 workers are to be laid off on May 19 after action taken by Boeing in January and March this year, the commercial airplanes unit has warned employees that hundreds more engineers are likely to be affected by another round of involuntary layoffs. It is understood these will begin on June 23, according to a memo from John Hamilton, Vice President Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
The memo states: “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 a statement, Boeing indicated that the extra job cuts would include managers and executives and the staffing reduction this time would come from a combination of attrition, voluntary layoffs and involuntary layoffs.
“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 statement said.
It is not yet known if workers at Boeing’s Dreamliner factory in South Carolina will be affected