Boeing unit plans to cut as many as 1,500 jobs
Bloomberg News Service
CHICAGO — Boeing Co., the world's biggest planemaker, will cut 1,200 to 1,500 more computer-services and administrative jobs as airlines delay orders amid record losses.
The cuts represent about 9 percent of the workers at Boeing's Bellevue, Wash.-based administrative unit. The reductions will be made within six months and include layoffs, attrition and cuts in contract labor, Boeing spokeswoman Barbara Murphy said.
The unit had cut 2,741 jobs as part of 30,000 eliminated companywide after the Sept. 11 attacks amplified a decline in air travel. Chief Executive Phil Condit said two weeks ago, as Boeing reported a 43 percent drop in third-quarter profit, that more jobs would be shed. The planemaker expects airliner deliveries to fall to as few as 275 next year from 380 this year and 527 in 2001.
"There's no sign the airline industry is going to recover any time soon, so they're trying to protect the bottom line as much as they can," said Brian Eisenbarth, who holds 180,000 Boeing shares in his $220 million Davidson Large Cap Value Strategy Fund.
Shares of Boeing, which gets more than half of its sales from commercial aircraft, have fallen 22 percent this year.
The company said its airliner business, which took the brunt of the 30,000 job cuts, is also considering how many more positions it will have to eliminate during the next year.
"We expect to have some sense of what the extent will be in a few weeks," said Bill Cogswell, a Boeing spokesman.
Condit has said the reduction will be relatively small. The company had 168,400 workers as of Oct. 3.
The cuts at the so-called "shared services" unit will be across the board and include management, Murphy said. While the unit is based in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, workers handle tasks such as booking travel and purchasing office supplies at Boeing facilities nationwide. The unit employs 16,600 people.
"We must match our services to the demand," she said.
Boeing's profit has declined for four consecutive quarters as airlines such as AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Delta Air Lines Inc. slash orders. Rival Airbus SAS forecasts it will pass Boeing in annual deliveries for the first time ever next year.
