Boeing to cut 90 jobs, mostly from its unit in Brisbane

The Boeing Company, the major aircraft-manufacturer based in the United States, has decided to cut 90 jobs within a week.

Boeing said in a statement that those workers who are to lose jobs – mainly from the company’s unit located in Brisbane, Queensland, in Australia – would be given 60 days’ notice saying that “their position is being made redundant.”

“While being difficult,” the Boeing statement added, “this action is necessary to secure the future of the business” and that the company would “attempt to retrain or re-employ workers who are given notice.” For those who cannot be re-employed, the company would give a redundancy payout.

The Boeing Company employs around 2,300 workers across Australia.

The website theaustralian.news.com.au quoted Andrew Dettmer, secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, as saying that the workers “had feared for their jobs” for the past eight months. Though Boeing had promised redundancies, Dettmer added, “it was not a case of one size fits all” when companies resort to redundancies and that Boeing had not told the union of its plans for re-employment.

According to Boeing, the company has, since July 2007, cut its workforce at its unit in Amberley in Queensland, Australia, from 800 to 470.

These job losses, Boeing explained, were the result of difficulty in winning new contracts. “The crux of Boeing’s problem is that its core business at Amberley, which maintains the F111 military aircraft, comes to an end in 2009 in the lead-up to the phase-out of the F111 in March 2010,” the company said in the statement.

It added that the project to modify Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft at the Amberley facility was also scheduled to finish by the end of 2009.

Boeing said it had suffered much because of the strike by 27,000 of its workers in the United States for 57 days in 2008.

Meanwhile, theaustralian.news.com.au quoted Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland, as stressing that her government had invested a lot to bring aviation to Queensland. A spokesman for Desley Boyle, Industry Minister of Queensland, said the Boeing Company had fulfilled its employment and economic obligations for the $20 million it had received in funding.

Australia’s aviation industry in general suffered a setback recently with Qantas Airways, the national airline of Australia, reducing capacity and the budget carrier Virgin Blue indicating that it may trim down jobs in the coming months. In addition, Macair, the regional airline based in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, was wound up a month ago, leaving 180 people jobless.

Virgin Blue had announced in February 2009 that it was trying to save money by eliminating about 400 full-time jobs and that it would consider options that include leave without pay, job-sharing and transfers to other units within the group in order to prevent redundancies.