Boeing’s plane output climbs even as jobs decline
In another boom year for commercial aerospace, Boeing is busy building infrastructure in Washington state – and yet it also has cut its workforce for the third straight year.
By the end of 2015, Boeing’s local assembly plants for the first time will have delivered more than 700 commercial airplanes, propelling Boeing well ahead of Airbus in jet production.
In Renton, the 737 factory has been transformed by millions of dollars of investment in automated equipment, to prepare for even higher production rates.
In Everett, construction is well advanced on a massive new composites plant where the wings of the forthcoming 777X will be fabricated.
But as of Nov. 30, Boeing had 1,424 fewer workers in Washington than it had at the beginning of the year.
Its workforce here is down nearly 7,700 jobs, almost 9 percent, from the most recent peak in October 2012.
Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with the Teal Group, said he expects Boeing’s job cuts in the Puget Sound region to continue.
“A higher level of automation, greater dispersal of engineering work, coupled with the rise of Charleston as a manufacturing center,” he summarized. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. It means fewer jobs producing more jets.”
Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said the vast majority of the work moved from the state this year was due to the relocation of Boeing defense work to Oklahoma City and St. Louis, as well as “the continued geographic diversification” of research and technology and airline-support services – to new engineering centers in North Charleston, South Carolina; Huntsville, Alabama; Seal Beach, California; St. Louis and to sites overseas, including Moscow.
The local engineering corps has been hit hardest.
The union that represents Boeing white-collar workers, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), has lost 1,405 members so far this year.
Some moved to Boeing sites in other states. But many others retired or left the company for work elsewhere and were not replaced. And 417 were laid off.
Alder noted that despite these recent job losses, Boeing’s current Washington workforce of more than 79,300 is still about 26,500 larger than it was at a low point in 2004.
And since then, the portion of Boeing’s almost 162,000-strong workforce that works here has grown from one-third to almost half.
“Over the last 12 years, Boeing has chosen to concentrate jobs in Washington state to a greater degree than any other place in the world,” said Alder. “Our investment in the Everett and Renton sites, as well as our expanded delivery center in Seattle, speaks to our commitment to the Puget Sound region.”