COLORADO, USA — Boeing announced it plans last week to lay off approximately 63 employees at its Colorado locations, part of thousands of cuts planned nationwide as the embattled aerospace company struggles to recover from financial and regulatory trouble and a machinist strike.
Boeing's Colorado layoffs will affect employees in Arapahoe, Denver and El Paso counties, according to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) letter sent out Friday. The layoffs are expected to begin Jan. 17, 2025, for most employees.
The Associated Press reported that the company announced planned cuts to 10% of its workforce in October, which equates to about 17,000 jobs, in the coming months. CEO Kelly Ortberg told employees the company must “reset its workforce levels to align with our financial reality.”
Boeing has several locations in Colorado, where they employ between 1,200 and 5,500 people total, according to data from Colorado's Department of Labor and Employment.
According to the company's third quarter earnings review for 2024, Boeing's having a rough time. The company's made $300 million less from sales compared to the same time last year, and it's losing more money on operations than before. For every share of the company that people own, the loss is significantly larger than it was last year, about a $7 difference. Boeing's also using up more cash than it did last year.
An eight-week strike by the company's machinists' union didn't help its financial struggles. Boeing’s unionized machinists began returning to work in early November.
The strike strained Boeing’s finances, but Ortberg said on an October call with analysts that it did not cause the layoffs, which he described as a result of overstaffing.
Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since a panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane in January. Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the 737 MAX at 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach. According to its most recent earnings report, the 787 program is currently producing at four per month, with plans to return to five by year-end.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
