Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) had already let it be known that it planned to cut about 4,000 jobs in Washington state, but new documents indicate that the cuts could be up to twice that number. The company faces stiffer competition on price from rival framemaker Airbus, and Boeing has said it needs to cut costs by billions of dollars by the end of 2016.
The 4,000 announced job cuts include attrition of 2,400 jobs and voluntary buyouts of another 1,600. The company said the cuts include hundreds of managers and executives. According to a document obtained by the Seattle Times, one of the company’s units is targeting a 10% staffing cut, and if 10% is the company’s target for its operations in Washington, that translates to as many as 8,000 jobs in the state.
Boeing received $8.7 billion in tax breaks  from the state in 2013 to keep manufacturing of the new 777X in Washington. Those breaks included no requirement that Boeing maintain certain employment levels in the state. Washington has lost about 9,000 jobs since late 2012, many of which involved transferring work to other Boeing locations, according to the Seattle Times.
In an internal Boeing webcast to employees last month, Ray Conner, CEO of the commercial aircraft division, basically said that Airbus is eating Boeing’s lunch, having reduced Boeing’s share of the total backlog to 46% and a desire to push that total to just 40%.
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