The American concern Boeing Co (NYSE: BA), one of the world's largest manufacturers of aerospace and defense technology, plans to cut about 4 thousand jobs in the commercial aircraft division by June of this year.
At the same time, as concern’s spokesman Marc Birtel told Bloomberg, Boeing has no plans for compulsory redundancies. According to him, Boeing will dismiss 1600 employees in the voluntary reduction program announced last month. Another 2400 positions are either vacant or will be reduced at the expense of sending employees to retire, said M.Birtel.
The commercial aircraft division, which accounts for 68% Boeing profits in 2015, is also changing the management structure, to create "a more rational and flexible organization that can respond to the needs of the market", said the representative of the group.
Boeing is stepping up efforts in reducing costs, seeking to maintain profits in the face of fierce competition from the Airbus Group (PA: AIR) SE.
In addition to the job cuts, the company is looking for other opportunities to reduce costs, in particular, reviewing contracts with suppliers, to cut spending on business trips, as well as taking measures to increase productivity, improve quality and reduce excess inventory products.
The implementation of these initiatives may eventually lead to a reduction of a number of jobs, said M.Birtel.
Another spokesman of Boeing, Doug Alder, said: "There is no employment reduction target. The more we can control costs as a whole, the less impact there will be to employment."
At the longer term there is an 8000 jobs cut plan, which could save $1 billion in labor costs. Once the costs will be cut, the company will become more competitive.
The reduction of 4000 jobs will reduce the number of Boeing employees of about 161 000 as of December 31, 2015, by approximately 2.5%.