Boeing Hiring Tops Forecast, May Hit 13,000 In ‘96 Sudden Surge In Orders Sets Stage For Fastest Job Growth In Nearly 30 Years

Forget forecasts. The Boeing Co. is hiring workers at its fastest pace in nearly 30 years - so rapidly its own employment predictions can’t keep up.

Even a revised jobs forecast issued just two months ago already is outdated. In March, Boeing said it expected to increase Washington employment by 6,700 by year’s end. In August, the company upped that forecast to 9,800.

But by last week, Boeing already had added 10,960 new workers to the payroll. And that doesn’t count 465 workers in Auburn who were offered jobs last weekend.

At its frantic pace of hiring, Boeing is likely to have 85,000 or more workers in Washington by year’s end. That’s 13,000 more local workers than at the start of the year and twice what Boeing anticipated in its initial forecast.

That would make this Boeing’s biggest one-year local hiring boom since 1967. Already, it’s the largest run-up since 1979.

“That’s faster than they would like to be hiring, I suspect,” said Bill Whitlow, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities in Seattle. “The demand has come so much more quickly than they anticipated, so they’re getting behind on their production.”

The demand is steep enough that the company is considering rehiring some of the 9,000 veteran employees who took advantage of an early-retirement opportunity in June 1995.

“If there were some special expertise areas where we needed someone … we might be interested in that,” said Boeing spokesman Bob Jorgensen. “While that’s not anything we’re planning for, it’s not something we would rule out.”

Boeing plans to more than double aircraft production within the next two years from its current rate of 18 planes a month to nearly 40. Analysts think that estimate may prove conservative.

Fueling the production boom are growth in the airline industry and new rules that bar the use of older, noisier airplanes after Dec. 31, 1999. Over 1,100 U.S. jetliners alone have to be replaced or muffled over the next three years just to meet the new noise rules.

Fueling the employment boom are a surge in orders and Boeing’s ambitious plans to expand its offerings.

Already Boeing is launching a new generation of 737 jetliners, with the first model rolling out Dec. 8. In addition, it is expanding its 777 family of aircraft and should, by year’s end, launch at least one of two new versions of the 747 jumbo jet.

“We try to forecast based on what our customers are telling us,” Jorgensen said. At the same time, customers getting ready to buy aren’t too keen to disclose how well their business is doing.

“That’s like going out to buy a car; you don’t want to wear a tuxedo. You wear your old clothes so you can say we can’t afford it. Once they’re placing orders, that’s the moment of reality.”

Boeing has been advertising for workers in 14 U.S. cities - each chosen because it is a high-tech center, an industrial center or an academic center.

It’s also setting out a “help wanted” sign in its competitors’ backyards. Boeing is advertising heavily in St. Louis and Long Beach, Calif., where McDonnell Douglas makes fighter jets and commercial airplanes respectively.

Even Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany - where Airbus Industrie makes its widebody and narrowbody jetliners respectively - aren’t safe from Boeing recruitment efforts.

Meanwhile, Boeing is showing signs of strain in getting its airplanes delivered to customers on time. So far, no planes have been delivered late. But at Everett this Saturday and for four other Saturdays by year’s end, 2,000 workers on the 747 line face mandatory overtime.

In Auburn, perhaps 100 workers are working mandatory overtime, while several hundred others are doing so voluntarily.

Boeing spokesman Peter Conte said the mandatory overtime is to help Boeing catch up.

“They’re working very hard to maintain schedule,” Conte said. “Anytime you’re increasing production you’re going to experience growing pains.

“We’re encountering the growing pains now.”