SEATTLE – Boeing Co. handed out about 2,300 more layoff notices nationwide Friday, including 1,425 in Washington state, as part of its previously announced plan to reduce its commercial airplanes work force by as many as 30,000 workers, the company said.
This is the fourth round of 60-day layoff notices since the company announced the cuts one week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Including the latest round, more than 19,000 workers have already received notices they will lose their jobs.
About 2,070 of them have been in Wichita facility.
"It still looks like 5,000, or slightly over, by the middle of next year," Boeing-Wichita spokesman Dick Ziegler said of the Wichita layoffs.
The cuts are expected to be mostly completed by midyear.
"It is very tough to come to work — it really is," Ziegler said.
The cuts are expected to be mostly completed by midyear.
The attacks, using four Boeing jets, sent the already struggling airline industry — Boeing's main customer base — into crisis. This week, major airlines posted hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, largely due to the drop in travel after Sept. 11.
Alan Mulally, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has said airplane production will drop by half, from 48 airplanes per month before Sept. 11 to 24 airplanes a month by the middle of this year.
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