As a part of a projected 10,000 jobs across the company some 900 Boeing employees are expected to receive 60-day layoff notices. Of this latest group of layoffs 700 are from jobs in the Puget Sound region. The second, so far, round of layoffs has brought the total to approximately 2000 employees. The brunt of this layoff has hit the commercial airline group. To date Boeing has also reduced its contract staff by hundreds as a cost saving measure through other actions.
The commercial airline unit, responsible for producing aircraft such as the 747, 767, 777 and 787 (all manufactured in Everett, WA) is capable of turning out five to seven of these high capacity airliners per month depending on the demand of the market. The Boeing plant at Everett, WA sits on over 1000 acres, and has one of the largest buildings in the world (the main assembly building). Each 747 requires six million parts. The plant is staffed by 25,000 people on a three shift schedule.
The slow down of the economy, and the plight of the travel industry has finally reached the manufacturers. The consumer demand for air travel and the increased cost due to fuel and fees has caused airlines to change operating procedures, cutting routes, shifting schedules to accommodate a smaller fleet flying more miles, and carrying as full a load as possible. Additionally, less available capital on the part of the airlines to lease planes drops the demand for new aircraft significantly, even though the existing fleets may be taxed at a faster rate than in previous years.
The downside of course in seeing decline in an industry wherein a single product is manufactured from millions of individual components is that there are further downstream effects. While the plants themselves require the labor of several thousand workers to complete an aircraft, the necessary parts to build the aircraft come from a thousand suppliers across the country and throughout the world. IT is estimated that at its peak the plant could receive fifteen railcars of component parts per day to sustain the activity at the plant.
About Boeing:
Incorporated in 1916 in Seattle, Washington, Boeing is responsible for producing some of the leading military and civilian aircraft. The company employs roughly 160,000 people (as of 2008), mostly in Washington, California, Missouri, Texas, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Alabama, and Kansas. The commercial airplane group is the second largest companywide following the defense systems group.
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Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.