By Allison Lampert and Dan Catchpole
SEATTLE, April 16 (Reuters) - Boeing is hiring around 100 to 140 factory workers a week, the highest pace since 2024, as the U.S. jetmaker replaces retirees and increases staffing to support higher production rates and new models, a union leader said.
Boeing's unionized factory workers in the Pacific Northwest now number more than 34,000 and are "heading higher," Jon Holden told Reuters in his first interview as a vice president specializing in training and apprenticeships
at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM).
"We're seeing strong interest as we hire in Puget Sound and across the enterprise to support our production rate increases," a Boeing spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.
The IAM represented about 33,000 Boeing workers in the region in 2024 when Holden headed that local union during a seven-week strike over a new contract.
Boeing needs to staff a fourth Seattle-area production line, known as the North Line, for the planemaker's strong-selling 737 MAX narrowbody jet. It also needs to support production of the 777X widebody that is still awaiting certification and to replace retirees.
"So it's not just those working on the North Line," said Holden, who started this month as the union's vice president of training and apprenticeships. "It will be, you know, those that have to bring parts, logistics and storage. It's going to be tooling, it's going to be you know, transportation."
In Washington state, aerospace manufacturing jobs dropped to around 79,000 last August but have since steadily climbed to 81,800 in February, according to the state's Employment Security Department.
Aerospace companies are hiring to meet demand from airlines for more fuel-efficient jets, a space boom and rising defense spending due to geopolitical tensions around the globe and ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Karen Arlak, chief human resources officer at Honeywell Aerospace, said the U.S. supplier expects to add more than 1,200 positions this year in areas such as engineering and manufacturing due to growth in the commercial aftermarket, defense and space sectors.
The aerospace industry has wrestled with a shortfall of skilled workers since the COVID-19 pandemic ended and operations ramped up again.
Aviation Technician Education Council Executive Director Crystal Maguire said only about 75% of Federal Aviation Administration-licensed mechanics come out of specialized schools, driving demand for apprenticeship programs and workers shifting from other sectors.
A Boeing apprenticeship program that trains for specialized skills like composite repairs is expanding above the 125 apprentices agreed to in a 2024 contract reached with the company, Holden said.
Boeing's current demand for factory workers still trails the company's aggressive hiring in 2023 to 2024, when it needed to add workers following the pandemic and the earlier grounding of the 737 MAX after two deadly crashes.
"This is more, I think, a sustained ramp that I feel good about, as long as the economy continues to go, as long as airlines continue to keep their orders," Holden said.
(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Dan Catchpole in Seattle; Editing by Jamie Freed)
