Chicago-based Boeing Co.’s commercial-jet segment disclosed plans Friday to eliminate 4,500 jobs, or about 6.6 percent of the operation’s workforce, by year’s end.
Company officials said the reductions will involve primarily workers in “overhead functions,” rather than airplane production employees.
Most of Boeing’s commercial-jet workforce is in the Puget Sound area of Washington state, and Boeing said the bulk of the job cuts will take place there.
Boeing’s commercial-jet group has a $275 billion backlog of orders that represents about eight years’ worth of production. After riding out a strike that stalled plane assembly last year, the company has returned to its maximum-capacity production of jetliners.
Boeing said the job cuts will trim the commercial group’s staffing back to the 63,500 employees it had in January 2008.
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Compiled from Tribune staff, wire reports
