© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of Boeing 777X aircraft parked at the King County International Airport-Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington, U.S., June 1, 2022. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson
By Valerie Insina and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing (NYSE:) expects to hire 10,000 workers in 2023 as it recovers from the pandemic and ramps up passenger jet production, but will cut some support jobs, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company boosted overall employment by about 14,000 workers in 2022 to 156,000 as of December 31, up from 142,000 in 2021. Boeing employs about 136,000 workers in the United States.
Boeing acknowledged that it will “reduce staffing in some support functions,” a move intended to allow it to better align resources to support current product and technology development. He declined to comment on how many jobs it will cut in 2023.
Most of the growth will come in Boeing’s business units, as well as engineering and manufacturing, to meet growing airline demand.
The company plans to increase 737 MAX deliveries from 374 aircraft in 2022 to 400-450 aircraft this year, with 787 deliveries expected to reach 70-80 aircraft.
Its European rival Airbus said this week it plans to add 13,000 employees this year. Approximately 7,000 of those jobs will be newly created positions, with approximately 9,000 of the new hires in Europe.
Boeing did not comment on how many net new jobs would be created in the United States in 2023.
The US aircraft maker is nearing pre-pandemic workforce levels, which stood at 161,000 people at the end of 2019. During 2020, the workforce was reduced to around 141,000 employees after Boeing announced job cuts.
“Hiring is no longer a constraint,” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told analysts on Wednesday. “People can hire the people they need. It’s about training and ultimately preparing them to do the sophisticated work that we demand.”
