Boeing plans to cut about 5% of the workforce at its commercial airplanes division as it struggles to raise jetliner production, the head of the division told staff in an internal memo on Monday 9 November.

Stephanie Pope, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the company had become overstaffed after slowing its production plans. The reductions will come through a combination of attrition and involuntary layoffs, with notices to affected employees expected from December at the earliest. Reuters reported the memo, and Leeham News, which reviewed the memo, reported the same plan.

Boeing has not said exactly how many people will lose their jobs. The division employed 50,494 people at the end of December 2025, according to the company's website, so a 5% reduction would be roughly 2,500 roles. That figure is an estimate based on the published headcount, not a number Boeing has given.

Why Boeing is cutting jobs

In the memo, Ms Pope said Boeing needed to reset the pace of its production increases to give its factories and suppliers more time to achieve stability. She wrote: "Adjusting our production schedules and reducing aircraft output puts us in an overstaffed position."

Chief executive Kelly Ortberg told analysts last month that Boeing would miss its 737 production and delivery targets this year. The company now expects to reach a rate of 47 of the jets a month in early 2027, having previously aimed to hit that pace by summer 2026, with a further step to 52 a month in the second half of 2027. Boeing has also struggled to raise production of its 787 widebody jet from eight a month to 10 a month.

The 737 is Boeing's single largest cash generator, making higher output essential to the company's recovery after years of crises that left it heavily in debt and under stricter regulatory scrutiny. Mr Ortberg also told analysts that Boeing does not now expect to reach $10 billion in annual free cash flow until 2029, a year later than analysts had expected.

Who is affected

Boeing has not published a breakdown of which teams or locations will be hit. Staff in Wichita, Kansas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, were told in a separate message that they were not being considered for layoffs, according to local reporting. In many US states, Boeing is required to give workers 60 days' notice before a layoff takes effect.

The cuts are the first workforce reduction since Mr Ortberg, who became chief executive in 2024, eliminated 17,000 positions that year. Shares in Boeing fell by less than 1% in afternoon trading on Monday after the news emerged.

What happens next

Affected employees will begin receiving notices in December, and the company will say more about the scale of the layoffs once that process is under way. Workers who leave through attrition will not be replaced, while others will be told their roles are being cut.

The announcement underlines how far Boeing still has to go to stabilise production. Until output of the 737 rises reliably towards its target rate, the planemaker's recovery, and the jobs that depend on it, will remain under pressure.