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Boeing Is Laying Off Hundreds of Workers As It Struggles to Compete With Airbus

Published: Jun 02, 2016 2 min read

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China's First Boeing 787-9 Aircraft Makes Its First Flight To Chengdu
Photo taken shows the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport on May 26, 2016 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province of China. China's first medium-sized Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft purchased by Air China from Boeing Factory, America, makes the first flight named CA4102 from Beijing to Chengdu after nearly three hours on Thursday. The Boeing 787-9 is the latest model of Boeing 787 series. Air China will schedule the aircraft to operate Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Guangzhou, Sanya-Beijing-Frankfurt, Beijing-Rome routes in the future.
VCG—VCG via Getty Images

Boeing plans to lay off 211 employees in Washington state on July 22, a state agency said, referring to a group that likely includes information technology workers that Boeing is letting go in a cost-cutting drive.

The Chicago-based aerospace and defense company said last week it would eliminate an unspecified number of IT workers through involuntary layoffs. The state Employment Security Department said late Wednesday that it had received notice of 211 layoffs planned by the company.

Boeing is slashing costs as it battles for sales with European rival Airbus and tries to widen its profit margins to mid-teens by the end of the decade, from 7.9% in the first quarter.

Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The company has said that the IT layoffs include workers in Washington state, but they are not from its commercial airplanes division.

It wasn't immediately clear how many of the company's IT workers in other states also faced layoffs. Boeing has said that the layoffs include management and non-management workers and were being made across the company.

Separately, Boeing is using voluntary layoffs to cut about 4,000 positions by mid-year and up to 8,000 by year-end at its commercial airplanes division.