Boeing Lays Off Another 400 Workers in Second Round of Cuts

Boeing has laid off another 400 Washington workers in a second round of job cuts, according to a notice filed Monday with the state's employment security department.

That's in addition to the 2,199 layoff notices Boeing delivered to Washington workers last month, bringing the total number of job cuts in the state to nearly 2,600.

The layoffs are part of sweeping job cuts at Boeing, which said in October it planned to reduce its workforce by 10%, or roughly 17,000 people in the coming months.

In the first wave of layoffs in November, Boeing laid off roughly 3,500 people around the country, according to notices filed with state employment agencies. Washington, where Boeing has 66,000 workers, saw the greatest impact from the cuts that round.

According to a new notice filed with the state Monday, Boeing laid off an additional 396 people in Washington.

The workers are spread around the Puget Sound region, with layoffs hitting those based in Auburn, Bremerton, Everett, Kent, Puyallup, Renton, Seattle and Tukwila, as well Joint Base Lewis-McChord military base near Tacoma.

Those workers will remain on payroll until Feb. 21, according to the state notice.

Most employees who are laid off will remain on payroll for two months following the delivery of the layoff notice, though they are largely not expected to continue working during that time.

Laid-off workers will also receive severance pay, career transition services and subsidized health insurance benefits for up to three months.

When announcing the sweeping layoffs in October, CEO Kelly Ortberg said the company had to "reset our workforce levels to align with our financial reality and to a more focused set of priorities."

"We know these decisions will cause difficulty for you, your families and our team, and I sincerely wish we could avoid taking them," he wrote. "However, the state of our business and our future recovery require tough actions."

The layoffs, which are expected to hit all sorts of jobs and experience levels, have so far impacted nearly 4% of Boeing's professional aerospace union, or SPEEA.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace said Friday that the two rounds of job cuts had impacted 660 people.

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