Boeing in Trouble: 17,000 Employees Will Be Laid Off

The aerospace giant's already difficult financial situation has been exacerbated by a strike that has involved some 35,000 workers for about a month now

By the end of 2024, US aviation giant Boeing will have cut at least 17,000 jobs worldwide, or more than 10% of the multinational Seattle-based corporation’s workforce. The strike, which will lay off many thousands of highly skilled workers, is intended to address the financial difficulties the airplane manufacturer has been in for years.

After a series of airplane crashes and incidents, the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) is investigating the design and safety of various Boeing models, from 737 Max to 787s, Dreamliners, and 777s. In July 2024, Boeing pleaded guilty to fraud in the 737 Max crash and will pay a fine of nearly $250 million. In addition, the aircraft manufacturer will have to invest at least $455 million to improve the safety of its planes. The offenses were committed by Boeing in connection with the crashes of two 737 Max planes in Indonesia in October 2018 and five months later in Ethiopia that killed 346 people.

In September 2024, another scandal involving Italy broke: two Apulian companies, one from Grottaglie, which dealt with the center and center-back parts of the Boeing 787 fuselage (technically called 44 and 46 on the assembly line), the other from Foggia, which assembled the horizontal tail stabilizer, were accused of supplying Boeing with substandard components that did not meet strict safety standards.

An investigation by the Brindisi prosecutor’s office sensationally found that the parts produced and assembled by the two Apulian companies “risked destroying the structures supporting the passenger floor because they were made of technically pure titanium rather than the ultra-special and much more expensive T6AL4V, as the aluminum alloys used were different from those stipulated in the contract, allowing the supplying companies to save substantially on the purchase of raw materials.”

Finally, Boeing’s accounts, which have been in the negative for some time, are weighed down by a strike that has been underway for about a month with some 35,000 employees who are demanding, among other things, a 40% wage increase. The company blames unions and workers for Boeing’s “deteriorating results in the third quarter of 2024.” As a consequence, it was announced that it was necessary to “revise the size of the labor force to match financial reality.”

The various upheavals forced Boeing to announce the “postponement of delivery of the new 777X wide-body airplane from 2025 to the subsequent year.” Production of the 767 Cargo model will be completely discontinued in 2027.