I believe many of the engineers are in the SPEEA:

http://www.speea.org/

"Since January 2016, Boeing has cut 1,332 engineering and technical jobs from its Washington workforce".

As a Washingtonian I am _so happy_ we gave Boeing 8.7 billion in tax breaks and incentives. They're taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere :/

Very common. Another fun example is the huge tax break MN gave to Northwest Airlines to build an Airbus maintenance facility in northern MN. They took the tax break and never built the facility. Or how about cable companies getting tax breaks to build out high speed internet in rural areas? One could go on...

Is there any information indicating that they are moving their workforce elsewhere?

The select quoting of the article here implies that the market demand is waning:

> The latest job cuts followed a prior involuntary reduction of 245 workers set for May 19 as the company responded to increasing competition and slowing aircraft sales.

> "We are moving forward with a second phase of involuntary layoffs for some select skills in Washington state and other enterprise locations," the memo said. "We anticipate this will impact hundreds of engineering employees. Additional reductions in engineering later this year will be driven by our business environment and the amount of voluntary attrition."

Sounds like cuts across the board, not cuts in Washington and growth elsewhere.

I haven't read anything specific and I could be wrong but it feels like it's just the trend: http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/airplane-maintenance-...

It's also a sign the company is circling the drain, it's the more qualified people that tend to take voluntary redundancies and take their chances in the job market. This leaves a lot of dead weight behind.

If you do layoffs repeatedly while not hiring anyone, yes, it can be very bad. But the aircraft industry is cyclical. I suspect Boeing has done layoffs/hiring/layoffs/hiring cycles repeatedly in the past.

>>taking that money and using it to maintain their work force elsewhere

I'd look at Chicago. That's where the HQ and executives are, right?

Tax breaks simply should not exist on any level. I can't think of something more absurd than picking people to give tax breaks to.

Nope, Washington State Boeing engineers are 100% in a union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Professional_Engine... http://www.speea.org/

IIRC, even most (all?) software engineers working for Boeing in Washington State are required to join the union.

I worked for Boeing in Colorado on a major govt satellite program several years ago (non-union in CO of course), and when I received a WARN notice when our contract was ending I began looking around the company for other positions. All the SW Eng jobs I could find in the commercial aviation BU in Washington were listed as being "Union." Blech.

I ended up leaving the company after I figured out that Boeing's hiring and transfer policies meant it was easier to quit and apply for jobs as an external applicant, rather than applying as an internal candidate.

I don't know if it's any different for software engineers, but I have a friend who did an industrial engineering internship there a couple years ago. He was treated exactly like a full-time employee (full benefits, 401k, etc.) and had the option to join the union or not. It was barely any more for him to join so he did.

False. As an engineer you have the option of joining SPEEA, but it is not a requirement.

Joining the union offers some benefits, and some people do so for personal/political reasons.

One useful benefit was publication on anonymous salary information around raise time. You see exactly where you stand without violating the privacy of your peers.

Source: I'm a former Boeing employee (DS9 - Real-time systems simulation engineer)

Right. But if you don't join, you still have to pay union dues, right? That requirement kind of blurs things in my mind.