Boeing to Slash More Jobs in Long Beach
Citing sluggish sales of its 106-seat 717 passenger jet, Boeing Co. said Thursday that it plans to slash 600 more jobs at its Long Beach commercial airplane facility, doubling the number of reductions announced earlier this year.
Boeing officials said the latest job cuts will be across the board and will be made over the next six to nine months as the company eliminates two work shifts, leaving only a single day shift to produce the airplanes.
The latest announcement reflects a general downturn in the airline industry, but the 100-seat category of jets has been hit particularly hard, Boeing said.
Although the company did announce one significant order--for 20 by Midwest Express Airlines--this year, a firm agreement may not be reached until next year.
Moreover, AMR Corp.’s American Airlines elected to take only 30 of the 50 airplanes that had been previously ordered by Trans World Airlines, which American purchased this year. In all, Boeing said it has delivered 73 of the 135 airplanes ordered so far. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, Boeing estimated that it needed to sell 200 717 airplanes to break even.
“We’re reacting to the slow market for the 100-seat-category airplanes,” said John Thom, a Boeing spokesman. “We had good order experience in 2000, but it’s been slower this year. It’s been surprising to us that it’s been this slow.”
The latest round of cuts comes less than three months after the company said it would slash 600 jobs, saying it needed to cut costs by reducing the work force. The two reductions represent about a quarter of the 5,000 employees who work in the commercial airplane business in Long Beach. An additional 7,300 employees work in a nearby complex where Boeing makes the C-17 military cargo plane.
Boeing officials estimated that about 100 to 200 employees could find jobs in other parts of the company, but most of the job cuts will be made through layoffs and attrition.
The latest reduction continues years of retrenchment in aircraft manufacturing jobs in Southern California. At one time, the sprawling Long Beach complex employed more than 40,000 people.
Aerospace analysts said the 717’s future has been tenuous from the beginning. Boeing inherited the plane--then called the MD-95--from McDonnell Douglas when the companies merged three years ago.
