The hiring pace is the highest since 2024, as Boeing adds staff for a new 737 MAX production line and replaces retiring workers
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A union leader says the pace of new factory hires at Boeing $BA has reached roughly 100 to 140 workers per week — a level not seen since 2024 — driven by the need to replace retiring employees and build out the workforce behind rising production targets.
The comments came from Jon Holden, who recently became a vice president of training and apprenticeships at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Holden put the current IAM-represented headcount in the Pacific Northwest at more than 34,000, a figure he said is still climbing. That membership stood at roughly 33,000 in 2024, when he was at the helm of the local union through a seven-week work stoppage over contract terms.
"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.
Holden pointed to several factors fueling demand for new workers. Opening a fourth assembly line near Seattle — referred to internally as the North Line — for the 737 MAX will require significant additional staff, as will supporting the 777X widebody program, which has yet to receive regulatory certification. Holden noted that the workforce requirements stretch well past the production floor itself, touching areas like parts movement, warehousing, tooling, and transportation.
State data from Washington's Employment Security Department show aerospace manufacturing employment bottomed out near 79,000 workers last August and has since recovered to 81,800 as of February.
Holden contrasted today's hiring activity with the surge Boeing undertook in 2023 and 2024, which was driven by a scramble to rebuild headcount lost during the pandemic and after the 737 MAX was grounded in the wake of two fatal accidents. He characterized what is happening now as something steadier and more deliberate. "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," he told Reuters.
Holden also said enrollment in Boeing's apprenticeship program — which covers specialized trades including composite repairs — is now exceeding the cap of 125 participants that was negotiated into the IAM's 2024 labor agreement.
That hiring momentum comes against the backdrop of improving output figures. CNBC reported that 537 jets had changed hands in the first eleven months of last year, a trajectory that would put Boeing's full-year deliveries at their strongest since 2018. The FAA cleared a higher 737 MAX production ceiling of 42 planes per month last October, up from 38, and Ortberg has signaled that additional increases — in five-unit steps — remain on the table.
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