Boeing to Move Up Job-Cutting Plans

Boeing Co. will accelerate plans to cut as many as 30,000 jobs by about six months, wrapping up the layoffs by mid-2002, the head of the company’s world-leading commercial jet business said.

Chicago-based Boeing said in September that it would cut 20,000 to 30,000 workers in its Seattle-based jetliner unit to cope with shrinking demand from airlines hammered by a travel slump following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Initially, Boeing said it would cut about 10,000 jobs by the end of 2001, another 10,000 by the middle of 2002 and the remainder by the end of 2002.

“We are going to have to probably achieve that by the middle of next year,” Alan Mulally, Boeing’s commercial jet boss, told a business conference near the company’s narrow-body jet factory in Renton, Wash.

Boeing shares rose $1.16 to $34.35 on the NYSE.