9:00am Tuesday | The loss of 800 Boeing jobs in Long Beach is a major blow to the local aerospace industry, according to Dr. Nancy Sidhu, Chief Economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC).
“That’s a shame,” Dr. Sidhu said of the 550 jobs that will be moved to Oklahoma City, and the 250 that will be laid off. “The aerospace industry goes back a long way in Long Beach and Long Beach is a great place to do business in Los Angeles County.”
Boeing announced they are making the move in 2011 and 2012 as a cost-cutting measure, implying that it is simply cheaper to do the same work in Oklahoma City, even though their current facility is located within Long Beach’s highly-praised Enterprise Zone which offers tax breaks and other incentives to businesses. A Los Angeles Times article today quotes a spokesperson as saying that Boeing will receive “business incentives” from Oklahoma City.
Boeing said yesterday they made the decision in the interest of saving money for their customers, which Dr. Sidhu points out is almost entirely the Federal Government.
“There’s no question the U.S. Department of Defense is trying to cut its rate of expenditure wherever it can,” she says.
The Press-Telegram reports today that after this move is completed in 2012, Boeing will employ a total of 6,500 people after employing more than 16,000 in 1997. The aerospace company has said that it will attempt to find new jobs within the company for laid off employees, but Dr. Sidhu says the loss is too great, particularly because of the skill level required to perform the highly-technical work.
“These are not assembly line jobs,” says Dr. Sidhu. “These employees are highly skilled and highly paid, and they will be missed.”
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3:15pm Monday | Boeing announced today that about 800 jobs will leave Long Beach beginning in 2011, as the aerospace giant will move both the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program (AMP) and B-1 Program to Oklahoma City.
About 550 of those 800 positions will be moved to Oklahoma City. The rest will be “reduced,” according to a Boeing press release. Company managers are now deciding which employees will be offered relocation.
“Making a decision like this is never easy, but as we reviewed our anticipated operating costs for the next several years, it became clear that Boeing needs to take major actions on these programs in order to remain affordable for our customers,” said Mark Bass, Vice President and General Manager of the Maintenance, Modifications & Upgrades (MMU) division of the Global Services & Support unit.
“We remain committed to maintaining the excellent record of performance that our employees deliver for our U.S. Air Force B-1 and C-130 AMP customers during this transition.”
Both programs perform highly specialized work exclusively on the C-130 and B-1 Bomber aircraft. The C-130 AMP program reduces operating costs, targets obsolescence and thereby allows for future growth and development. The other program modernizes the B-1 Lancer bomber aircraft to enhance its munitions capability.