There will be layoffs of executives and managers among those affected.
Kelly Ortberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Boeing, has informed employees that the business will be decreasing the size of its whole workforce by ten percent within the course of the company’s message. A total of around 17,000 positions, including those held by executives and managers, will be eliminated by Boeing over the next few months. Ortberg, who had only taken over as CEO in August, emphasized that the company had to “make structural changes” in order to guarantee that it would be able to “stay competitive” and provide for its consumers over the course of the long term.
The announcement of the impending layoffs was made by Ortberg in the midst of a machinist strike that had halted production in the majority of Boeing’s plants, including the plants that were responsible for producing the 737 Max, the company’s most popular aircraft. It has been going on since the middle of September, and there are approximately 33,000 union machinists who are participating in the strike. AP says that this has had a significant effect on Boeing’s financial situation because the company is paid fifty percent of the total cost of an airplane after it has delivered an order to a customer.
In addition to the layoffs, Ortberg made the announcement that Boeing will postpone the construction of its 777X planes due to the difficulties it has encountered during the development process, in addition to the ongoing work stoppage. As of right present, the company is planning to deploy the new wide-body planes in 2026 rather than 2025.
After an Alaska Airlines door plug blew out while the plane was in the middle of flight, Boeing began 2024 with the necessity of grounding some of its 737 Max 9 aircraft. Although there were no instances of casualties being reported, the Boeing jet had only been operational since November of the previous year. As a result of two deadly accidents that occurred in 2018 and 2019, which resulted in the deaths of 346 people, the business had reached an agreement in July to plead guilty to a conspiracy to deceive the United States government. In addition, Boeing had incurred costs amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars as a consequence of the delayed return of Starliner from the International Space Station. The initial schedule for the business’s first crewed flight was only scheduled to last for a few days, however the company was unable to adhere to the original timeframe due to certain hardware concerns. After a number of months had passed, the Starliner eventually made its way back to Earth devoid of the astronauts that it had initially transported to the space station. It is now scheduled to return to Earth in February of the following year aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule.