SEATTLE -- Boeing is considering cutting more jobs to stay competitive. Sources told KING 5 Wednesday morning that the company is primarily targeting managers and executives.
In a speech before senior leadership, Boeing Commercial CEO Ray Conner said the company needs to stay number one and has to get its costs down.
Boeing will ask people to retire and take voluntary layoffs ahead of any forced job reductions.
The question for Boeing is how many of these job cuts can be handled through attrition, especially with nearly half the work force eligible for retirement by 2020.
The other trick for the company is to be able to hang on to its senior brain trust.
SPEEA, the union representing engineers and technicians primarily in Puget Sound, has lost more than 3,000 represented employees since October of 2013. Many of those jobs transferred to other locations like Oklahoma City and Long Beach, California.
While the jobs moved, most of the employees who held those jobs here didn't move with them.
Wednesday's announcement was foreshadowed by previously announced production rate cuts in the 747-8 and 777 lines. At the time they announced production rate cuts, Boeing emphasized that the burden would fall on managers and executives.
Rates for the 737, 787 and 767 production lines are increasing, which is expected to offset some of the slowdown. Boeing also builds 787 Deamliners in Charleston, South Carolina.
No numbers on the total number of job cuts are available at this time.
