Boeing Co. to Layoff 10,000 in 2009

The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) CEO said today the company will cut about 10,000 jobs, or about 6% of its work force in 2009 due to the global recession and industry downturn.

Shares of Boeing closed at $43 and change, in the last 6 months BA has dropped 30% and is just about 50% down in the past year.  The Boeing Co. is facing "one of the most difficult commercial and financial environments that most of us have ever seen," Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney said in a conference call Wednesday as Boeing reported a huge fourth-quarter loss because of the Machinists strike last year and a significant charge related to the delayed 747-8 program.

Here's the lowdown:

- McNerney said Boeing will cut about 10,000 jobs, or about 6 percent of its work force, this year because of the global recession and industry downturn. That's up from the 4,500 commercial job losses in the Puget Sound area in 2009 that Boeing announced earlier in the year. The additional 5,500 job cuts, to come mostly through layoffs and attrition, will be across the company, including Washington state, where nearly half of Boeing's 162,000 employees worked at the end of last year.

- Boeing has lost its first significant 787 order. A Russian airline group canceled an order for 15 Dreamliners. Boeing said it was because of the uncertain global economic climate and not due to delays on the 787 program that now stretch about two years.

- Airlines and leasing companies are likely to cancel more orders of all Boeing models this year, and defer delivery of an unknown number of jets.

- Design changes and other issues forced Boeing to take an unexpected fourth-quarter charge of $685 million related to the 747-8 that is now in development and is about a year late.

- The company had a net loss of $56 million in the fourth quarter, or 8 cents a share, compared with net income of $1.03 billion, or $1.36 a share, a year earlier. Much of the loss was because of the nearly two-month-long Machinists strike, which reduced earnings by an estimated $1.2 billion. Boeing said it delivered 105 fewer planes because of the strike. It was Boeing's first loss since the second quarter of 2006, when it lost $160 million, or 21 cents a share.

- Boeing lowered its earnings outlook for 2009 and would not make a forecast for 2010 because the economy remains so uncertain.

We'll see if these cuts can lift Boeing shares a few points, more tough times are headed toward the Seattle economy thanks to Starbucks and Boeing.

Boeing and Starbucks -- have announced, in just one day, that they're going to cut. Ten-thousand people laid off at Boeing. Six-thousand seven-hundred at Starbucks, that makes 16,700 good jobs lost.

SOURCE: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/397851_boeing29.html?source=mypi