More voluntary Boeing layoffs are on the way

Boeing is planning a second round of voluntary layoffs as it navigates the global downturn in passenger travel and commercial airplane demand.

We don’t know how many employees will be offered this second voluntary layoff package. We expect to find out more on that next Monday.

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In the first series of layoffs, several thousand Boeing employees took the voluntary buyout, which gave them one week of pay for every year of service, up to 26 weeks of pay. It also extended health care benefits for several months. And even though thousands of Boeing workers took the offer in late spring, it wasn’t enough to prevent a series of involuntary layoffs that hit over the summer.

And now this.

Bloomberg reports that Boeing CEO David Calhoun sent a letter to employees on Monday explaining the decision.

“I truly wish the current market demand could support the size of our workforce,” Calhoun’s letter reads. “Unfortunately, layoffs are a hard but necessary step to align to our new reality, preserve liquidity and position ourselves for the eventual return to growth.”

It’s expected that most of the buyout packages will be sent to employees in the commercial airplane and service divisions, plus some corporate functions.

The defense and space division continues to avoid the deep cuts, and in fact, Boeing is actually hiring several thousand employees on that side of the business. It looks like government contacts are still being paid, despite the pandemic.

Boeing had planned to trim its 160,000 global workforce by 10%, but it sounds like that’s not enough to get the company where it wants to go.

As Calhoun told investors earlier this year, Boeing is going to be a smaller company for a while as it awaits the long climb out of this pandemic.

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