Boeing offers $10,000 bonus as it looks to hire new people

Boeing is reportedly offering a recommendation bonus of up to $10,000 to its employees in a bid to hire new workers in certain areas.

Meanwhile, Boeing South Carolina, the location of the 787 Dreamliner assembly line, has publicly stated that it is offering a $5,000 signing bonus for “for experienced painters and interiors specialists!”

The company is hiring employees as it looks to ramp up aircraft production rates in the near future for its 737 MAX, 777/777X, and 787 programs. According to a report by Leeham News, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is offering a recommendation bonus for its current employees of up to $10,000 in the Puget Sound area in Washington, the United States (US). Puget Sound is home to many of the company’s manufacturing facilities, including the assembly lines of the 737 MAX or 777/777X, as well as the 767F and a military derivative of the 767, the KC-46A.

Boeing is only offering referral bonuses for certain positions at Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), with the list including positions such as aircraft sealer, assembler installer, aircraft structures mechanic, and aircraft test tech. The list also includes several positions in South Carolina and Utah, such as Product Acceptance Specialist, as well as for a Fabrication Specialist to work in Montana.

During the OEM’s Q4 2022 earnings call, David Calhoun, the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Boeing, stated that hiring people “is not a constraint anymore”. However, the problem, according to Calhoun, has been “the training and ultimately getting them ready to do the sophisticated work that we demand”. Boeing’s suppliers were also working on hiring personnel, but Calhoun noted the problem was not as important as “the training of the people that they’re bringing in”.

At the same time, Boeing wants to grow the production rates of its aircraft, including the 737 MAX. Reports have circulated in the media that the OEM wants to increase the 737 MAX rate from 31 to 38 by mid-2023, while the manufacturer confirmed that it wants to build five 787s per month later in 2023, with the number growing to 10 per month in 2025 or 2026. Furthermore, the current 777/777X production rate of three per month is set to increase to four per month in 2025/2026, according to the OEM’s information.

While Boeing has questioned whether it would be able to meet its hiring goals of 10,000 engineers in 2022, Brian West, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Vice President of Finance at the OEM, stated during the Bank of America Global Industrials Conference in March 2023 that the company beat its hiring goals, welcoming 15,000 new people into the company in 2022.