Boeing to Cut 5 Percent of Commercial Airplanes Workforce as 737 Ramp Slows

Boeing Commercial Airplanes will cut 5 percent of its workforce because the division is building fewer jetliners than it planned. Stephanie Pope, who leads the commercial airplane division, told employees in a memo on Monday that adjusting production schedules and reducing aircraft output has left the company overstaffed, and that staffing levels now have to match the revised plans.

The division counted 50,494 employees as of December 2025, according to the company website cited in the reports. Five percent of that number works out to roughly 2,500 positions. That figure is an estimate based on the published headcount. Boeing has not given its own total for the jobs affected.

What the memo says

Pope wrote that the company needs to reset the pace of its production rate increases so factories and supply chain partners have more time to reach stability. Her words, carried in the reports of the memo, were direct: "Adjusting our production schedules and reducing aircraft output puts us in an overstaffed position. Unfortunately, that means we need to align our staffing levels to our revised business plans."

The reductions will come through attrition and involuntary layoffs, the reports said. Workers will not hear immediately. Layoff notices will go out in December at the earliest, and in many states Boeing is required to give workers 60 days of notice before a layoff takes effect.

Why production is slowing

The cut follows a warning on output that came from the top of the company. Chief executive Kelly Ortberg told analysts last month that Boeing would miss its 737 jetliner production and delivery targets for this year. The company now expects to reach a rate of 47 jets a month in early 2027, and it is targeting 52 jets a month in the second half of 2027.

That slower path is the direct reason for the staffing move. A factory system set up for a faster increase in output carries more people than the revised schedule needs, and Pope's memo ties the job cuts to that gap between planned production and the production Boeing now expects to deliver.

The scale of the business

Even at the slower pace, the division is working through a long order book. At the end of the third quarter, the Commercial Airplanes backlog stood at more than 6,300 airplanes, valued at a record 612 billion dollars, according to the reports. The backlog shows why the argument inside Boeing is about the pace of building aircraft, not about a lack of orders to fill.

Investors reacted cautiously to the news. Boeing shares slipped about 1 percent on Monday after the reports of the workforce cut appeared.

First cut since 2024

This is the first workforce reduction at Boeing since Ortberg eliminated 17,000 positions in 2024 after he became chief executive. That earlier round was far larger than the one announced on Monday, and it set the pattern for the reset Ortberg has been running since he took the job.

For the workers affected this time, the next hard information is the December notice window. Until those notices go out, employees know the size of the cut in percentage terms, the reason their division chief gave for it, and the production rates the smaller workforce is being sized to meet: 47 jets a month in early 2027, rising toward 52 a month later that year if the plan holds.