By Valerie Insinna and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing expects to hire 10,000 workers in 2023 as it recovers from the pandemic and increases jetliner production, but will trim some support jobs, the U.S. planemaker said Friday.
The Arlington, Virginia-based company boosted overall employment by about 14,000 workers in 2022 to 156,000 as of Dec. 31, up from about 142,000 in 2021. Boeing employs about 136,000 workers in the United States.
Boeing acknowledged it will “lower staffing within some support functions” – a move meant to enable it to better align resources to support current products and technology development. It declined to comment on how many jobs it will cut in 2023.
Most of the growth will occur in Boeing’s business units, as well as engineering and manufacturing, to meet airlines’ growing demand.
The company plans to increase deliveries of the 737 MAX from 374 aircraft in 2022 to between 400 to 450 planes this year, with deliveries of the 787 expected to hit between 70 and 80 aircraft.
European rival Airbus said this week it plans to add 13,000 employees this year. About 7,000 of those jobs are set to be newly created positions, with about 9,000 of the new hires based in Europe.
Boeing did not comment on how many net new jobs would created in the United States in 2023.
The U.S. planemaker is nearing pre-pandemic workforce levels, which stood at 161,000 people at the end of 2019. During 2020, the workforce fell to about 141,000 employees after Boeing announced job reductions.
“Hiring is not a constraint anymore,” Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told analysts Wednesday. “People are able to hire the people they need. It’s all about the training and ultimately getting them ready to do the sophisticated work that we demand.”
(Reporting by Valerie Insinna and David Shepardson; Editing by Jan Harvey)
