Published December 2002

Boeing announces plans
to cut 5,000 more jobs

SCBJ Staff

The Boeing Co. will cut another 5,000 employees from its Commercial Airplanes division next year, division chief Alan Mulally announced in late November.

The company anticipates about half of the positions will be eliminated through normal attrition as employees retire or leave for their own reasons, spokesman Bill Cogswell said.

But a new batch of 60-day layoff warnings went out Nov. 22 to the first of those to be caught by the new cuts, Cogswell said. Their jobs will end Jan. 24.

The company already has announced plans to trim its overall production to between 275 and 285 jets next year, down from this year’s expected total of 380. In Everett, 767 production will fall, company executives have said, but more 777s will be built.

By the end of 2003, the commercial division’s work force will have fallen to 60,000 people, Cogswell said, down from the 65,000 it will have in January.

The job cuts in the commercial division will be in addition to previously announced layoffs coming in the Bellevue-based Shared Services unit. Officials there announced in October that between 1,200 and 1,500 jobs will be eliminated in the group.

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