Boeing to Cut 5% of Commercial Workforce Amid Ramp Up Delays

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. will cut 5% of its commercial airplane workforce as the company struggles to stabilize the pace of its production ramps.

“Adjusting our production schedules and reducing aircraft output puts us in an overstaffed position,” wrote Stephanie Pope, the chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in a message to employees Monday. “We need to reset the pace of our production rate ramps to provide our factories and supply chain partners additional time to achieve stability.”

The planned layoffs are an indication that Boeing’s turnaround is still far from complete. Production rate increases are seen as the main lever the planemaker can use to repair its balance sheet and accelerate its recovery after a series of quality and safety crises rattled the company in recent years.

Pope said the reduction, which was earlier reported by the Seattle Times, will occur through a mix of attrition and voluntary layoffs, with notifications starting next month.

Boeing shares pared earlier declines and were down 0.7% at 1:16 p.m. in New York. The stock has declined 21% this year.

The job reductions come just two weeks after Boeing said it was delaying plans to increase production of its 737 Max narrowbody jet into 2027, a goal originally planned for the end of this year, prompting the stock to fall to an 18-month low. Executives also said the company would miss its year-end delivery targets for both the 737 and the 787 Dreamliner widebody jet.

This will also be the first workforce reduction since CEO Kelly Ortberg slashed 17,000 jobs after joining the company in late 2024. At the time, it was facing a dire financial position incurred by a crippling machinist strike and the fallout from a door plug blowing out of an Alaska Air Group Inc. 737 Max 9 earlier that year.

(Updates throughout with background, shares in fifth paragraph.)

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