GRESHAM, Ore. — Boeing plans to lay off over 2,000 employees in Washington and Oregon over the next two months, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act (WARN) notices filed with the two states. About 50 of the layoffs will be at the company's facility in Gresham, with 1,199 coming from various facilities in Washington.
The Oregon WARN notice states that the layoffs will begin Jan. 17, which matches what management told employees in Washington last week before the separation notices began to go out. The Washington WARN notice lists a start date of Dec. 20, but it's unclear what that means, given that the company already issued a timeline that ends on Jan. 17 and WARN requires companies to provide at least 60 days notice before large-scale layoffs.
The layoffs were expected; new CEO Kelly Ortberg announced in October that Boeing would lay off about 10% of its overall workforce, or about 17,000 people, in a bid to restore the company's financial status and reputation.
Boeing has only recently begun to restart and ramp up production at its Washington and Oregon plants following a nearly two-month strike by about 33,000 machinists, including about 1,200 at the Gresham facility. The strike ended with a new contract agreement in early November.
Ortberg announced in late October that the company had reported a more than $6 billion third quarter loss. The strike halted production and delivery of Boeing's 737 MAX and 777 planes, though the company's financial struggles and delays with the 737 MAX in particular have been ongoing for years, dating back to the late 2018 and early 2019 crashes of two 737 MAX jets that killed a combined 346 people.
The crashes were later determined to have been caused by an automated system added to the 737 MAX that would push the plane's nose down if it detected that the aircraft was angled too sharply upward and at risk of stalling. In both crashes, the program activated in response to faulty sensor data, causing the planes to override their pilots and dive. The entire 737 MAX line was grounded for 20 months while the company developed a fix, only returning to the skies in late 2020.
Another mishap in early 2024 resulted in an almost-new 737 MAX having to make an emergency landing when a door plug blew off in midair shortly after the plane took off from Portland International Airport. A subsequent investigation found that the plug's anchoring bolts had been removed and never reinstalled when the plane underwent final checks at Boeing's facility before delivery a few months earlier.
