By Dan Catchpole, Allison Lampert
(Reuters) -Boeing will lay off more than 2,200 workers in the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon, according to documents published on Monday, as part of the highly indebted U.S. aircraft maker’s plan to cut 17,000 jobs, or 10% of global working population. .
The aerospace giant on Wednesday began telling affected U.S. workers that they will remain on Boeing’s payroll until Jan. 17, to comply with federal requirements to give employees at least 60 days’ notice before terminating their employment.
The news that Boeing would send out the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) in mid-November was widely expected. A new round is expected in December.
In October, Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, said the company has no plans to “pull people out of production or engineering labs.” Industry observers have been waiting for the WARNs for an indication of how the layoffs will affect workers in the company’s key manufacturing centers.
However, several hundred engineers and production workers were among those who received pink slips last week.
The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) said 438 of its union members at Boeing received layoff notices last week, including 218 engineers and 220 technicians.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) District Lodge 837 in St. Louis said Boeing sent notices to 111 members, most of whom made wing components for the 777X.
Who gets laid off appears to vary by section within Boeing, several non-union workers who received WARNs told Reuters.
One engineer at Boeing Defense, Space & Security said all but two or three members of his 12-person team had been laid off, while another said she was the only one of her 20-or-so team to receive a WARN. Both said they provide essential support to production and design engineers, but are not considered in production.
Engineers interviewed by Reuters said cutting it means more work for those who remain. But a retired Boeing contractor who was also laid off said, “This is probably an opportunity to look around and see who’s doing nothing, who’s dead weight.” There are many such people around Boeing who are not. productive, which are simply not essential.”
The announcements come as Boeing tries to restart production of its best-selling 737 MAX after a weeks-long strike by more than 33,000 workers on the US West Coast halted production of most of its commercial aircraft.
Boeing declined further comment Monday.
Shares of Boeing rose 2.7% to $143.90 on Monday afternoon.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal, Dan Catchpole in Seattle and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Shilpi Majumdar and Matthew Lewis)
