SEATTLE — In 2023, Boeing hired people steadily, building the workforce from its pandemic-era low point as jet production rates crept back up and retirements of more experienced employees demanded replacements.
Taking account of losses due to attrition and additions from new hires, data released Thursday by the company shows Boeing’s Washington state workforce grew last year by 11%, a net increase of 6,553 jobs.
After two years of heavy job losses during the pandemic, then two years of partial recovery, at the end of 2023 the number of Boeing employees in the state bumped up to 66,792 — still shy of the pre-pandemic count of 71,829.
“Our investments in engineering and manufacturing roles drove our growth in 2023, while we also simplified our corporate structure,” Boeing said in a statement.
The corporate “simplification” refers to the cutting and outsourcing last year of several thousand jobs among nonunion staff in human resources and finance.
In contrast, large numbers of union engineers and machinists were added.
These were needed in the Commercial Airplanes unit to push for a Boeing recovery after five years of staggering setbacks: the two fatal MAX 8 crashes; the subsequent grounding of the MAX 8 for almost two years; the prolonged halt in deliveries of the 787 due to manufacturing quality lapses; and then the industry downturn from COVID.
International Association of Machinists spokesperson Deirdre Kaniewski said the IAM last year often had between 150 and 220 machinists cycle through its weekly new-hire orientations.
With those new employees and attrition from union members leaving, the IAM’s local membership at Boeing supplied half of the net job growth.
From 28,000 the previous year, IAM Boeing membership rose to 31,500 at the end of 2023, adding 3,500 net jobs.
The union said Thursday that new entry-level hires without experience will start off with a Boeing wage of about $23 to $25 an hour. That starting pay grows just $3 per hour over the first six years, then at that point jumps dramatically to more than $45 an hour.
And after Boeing lost hundreds of experienced Seattle-area engineers at the end of 2022 — when veterans faced a significant cut to their pension payouts if they delayed retiring — the company hired 1,682 engineers and technical staff locally last year.
Boeing’s white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, or SPEEA, said new hires to its Boeing membership in 2023 included 1,351 engineers and 341 technical staff.
With attrition, SPEEA spokesperson Bryan Corliss said the union recorded a net increase in membership of 1,331, with just over 1,000 of those engineers and the rest technical staff.
Exactly a third of Boeing’s workforce is unionized.
Companywide in 2023, Boeing hired 23,000 people. With attrition from retirement and employees leaving, that produced a net increase of 14,334 employees for a total worldwide of 170,688.
According to a regulatory filing Thursday, just about a quarter of that global workforce is female. And 14%, or about 23,900 employees, are outside the U.S.
That includes engineers located all over the world. Boeing’s largest foreign engineering location is now India.
Of the roughly 147,000 Boeing employees in the U.S., the regulatory filing says 35% are racial and ethnic minorities and 15% are U.S. military veterans.
The ups and downs of Boeing employment
The state has seen wild swings in Boeing employment over the decades.
In the late 1950s, total Boeing employment in the state first rose above 50,000, then 60,000 and in 1967 reached just over 100,000.
The early 1970s brought the “Boeing Bust,” with tens of thousands of jobs slashed and workers laid off, so that by 1971 the workforce in Washington state had sunk to just 38,000.
The late 1980s saw another dramatic upward employment swing to an all-time peak in 1989 of almost 107,000 local employees.
A quarter-century ago, in June 1998, Boeing had 104,000 employees in Washington. That total was slashed by 26,000 in the following three years under the influence of new McDonnell Douglas executives intent on cost-cutting.
Then, after the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 hit the U.S. aviation industry, another 26,000 jobs were cut over the subsequent three-year period, bringing the Boeing workforce here in June 2004 to a low of 52,763.
At the end of 2003, Boeing launched the 787, its most recent all-new jet, and so in the second half of 2004 began hiring again, heading toward a peak of just over 87,000 in October 2012.
The next seven years saw slow decreases in the employment total and then a couple of years of some recovery — until the pandemic brought the latest downward swing.
After the alarming midair incident on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5, the Federal Aviation Administration capped Boeing’s production of the 737 MAX 9 for an undetermined period, limiting production.
So where Boeing hiring will go in 2024 is hard to predict. It’s a good bet the jet-maker will be hiring more quality inspectors.
