Boeing laying off 566 in California with biggest cuts in Seal Beach, El Segundo and Long Beach

Boeing is laying off 566 employees in California, all but 12 of them in Southern California.

Nearly a third of the layoffs, or 179 positions, are happening at Seal Beach facilities. Another 57 employees are losing their jobs at Astronautics Lane in Huntington Beach, plus 115 in Long Beach and 144 in El Segundo.

Dozens of other layoffs, many of them labeled “virtual” by Boeing, stretch from Northern California to the Inland Empire and south to San Diego.

Boeing, with a workforce of 171,000 people, is cutting its workforce by 10%, part of a plan announced by its new chief executive in October to save money during a machinists’ strike that curbed the company’s airplane manufacturing.

Also see: Boeing strike squeezes California aerospace suppliers

Chief Executive Officer Kelly Ortberg said at the time that staff reductions would include executives, managers and employees.

The layoffs were cited in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification sent in mid-November to the state’s Employment Development Department. The letter, signed by Elizabeth French in Exit Management at Boeing, stated most of the layoffs would begin Jan. 17.

Many of the job cuts include engineers, system analysts, technical designers and project specialists. French noted that none of the jobs included “bumping rights,” which are typically associated with union contracts. 

The list of layoffs by location includes:

Seal Beach: 179

El Segundo: 144

Long Beach: 115

Huntington Beach: 57

San Diego: 21

Single or small-scale layoffs, those noted by Boeing as “virtual,” are happening in Fullerton, Mission Viejo, Murrieta, Victorville, El Monte, Van Nuys, Palmdale, Ventura, Vandenberg Space Force Base, Edwards Air Force Base (3), Sacramento, San Jose, Pleasanton, Lemoore and Mountain View (4).

The machinists strike ended in early November, stemming a tide of financial losses for Boeing. The strike cost the company, by some estimates, about $100 million daily in lost revenue.

Ortberg took over in August during a chaotic time for the company, which is under scrutiny by government regulators and facing lawsuits over two Max 737 airplane crashes that killed 346 people. Other cost-cutting measures announced by the CEO include hiring freezes and travel restrictions.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.