Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Boeing To Lay Off Hundreds of Engineers Amid Sales Slowdown (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the round-two dept.

According to Reuters, Boeing has warned its employees that it "planned another round of involuntary layoffs that would affect hundreds of engineers at its commercial airplanes unit." From the report: The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales. The additional layoffs are due to start June 23, according to the memo from John Hamilton, vice president of engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations," the memo said. "We anticipate this will impact hundreds of engineering employees. Additional reductions in engineering later this year will be driven by our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition."

11 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Some exec is looking at the millions he saved by getting rid of all that pesky R&D/QA and going, "Man, can you believe we spent millions on personnel who just made sure stuff worked right? Good thing that's all going to my fat bonus now."

  2. Hmz.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why are the engineers always being fired first? Guess it's being something thougth by some random MBA course or something?

    1. Re:Hmz.... by Fringe · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It isn't really that the engineers get fired first; more like they don't even hire other disciplines now. The rest are outsourced to local manufacturers, or contracted workers through external companies, so it doesn't make the news when those reductions happen. Years ago Boeing manufactured a much larger percentage of their airplanes than they do now, and had a larger fraction of their administrative (e.g.) work done by employees.

    2. Re:Hmz.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      That is correct. Most of the Dreamliner for example is made outside the US, and increasing amounts of engineering are moved as well.

      The days when Boeing made most of the airplane in the US are long gone, and have been for a while.

    3. Re:Hmz.... by Jzanu · · Score: 4, Informative

      You really need to read that article again, starting with the summary at the top. You are either illiterate or biased and missed the point that Boeing was violating federal labor laws by actively choosing to re-locate an existing plant to another state. Regulation of such actions is the squarely the NLRB's job. Details of the actual complaint are here.

    4. Re:Hmz.... by Jzanu · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, the timing of the relocation decision following a strike at the Washington plant such that the relocation was a punishment to those workers for the act of organizing and striking is what made the action illegal. Read it all again, and the NLRB page.

  3. Two months ago "Couldn't keep up with demand" by aratuk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder how this report squares with the one from late February that "Boeing and Airbus Can't Make Enough Airplanes To Keep Up With Demand". Poor workforce management? One of these two stories must misrepresent the truth.

    1. Re: Two months ago "Couldn't keep up with demand" by raftpeople · · Score: 4, Informative

      The demand for engineering resources and the demand for production resources don't necessarily coincide. The article you linked to is referring to production.

    2. Re: Two months ago "Couldn't keep up with demand" by ghoul · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Part of that is the long lead times for Airlines. Engineers would be needed now to be designing a new plane which would enter manufacturing 5-10 years from now. There may be enough manufacturing demand for the existing planes but not enough demand for a new plane. Actually since its pretty much impossible to forecast demand 10 years in the future most new planes are gambles and Boeing is not feeling flush enough to take the gamble. Things like Trump pissing off the rest of the world which takes away a large chunk of Boeings potential customers play into that. But other factors like China and Russia coming out with good enough alternatives meaning many of the middle income country markets will shift away from Boeing and Airbus in the 5-10 year timeframe.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
  4. Electronics Ban by ghoul · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nope we are beginning to see the effect of Trump's electronics ban on Gulf airlines. They are moving orders away from Boeing to Airbus

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  5. Is this news? by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have studied aeronautics and I was told that U.S. aeronautical engineers were called "gypsies". All the U.S. aircraft were designed by the same team of engineers, who were hired for a design job, fired afterwards and therefore went from factory to factory to be able to make a living. For us European students, it was totally absurd that you would have to spend a large part of your life studying and still end up as a dragged-around gypsy.

    --
    Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!