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• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 November 2000

Engineer Attrition at Boeing

The question of attrition in the Boeing engineering community was addressed in "Boeing Chief Executive Extols Benefits of Employee Education Program" (Industry Focus, August 2000, p.8) The report cited a loss of 32 engineers out of 22,000 after the recent strike.

Approximately 20,000 engineers and technical employees are represented by the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), in the Puget Sound area, including approximately 11,000 engineers and 9,000 technical employees. Since January 2000, 1,082 of the 11,000 engineers have quit or retired. The annualized rate of voluntary terminations peaked at 20 percent in April, but has dropped to 12-13 percent in August. Among the 1,200 Boeing SPEEA-represented engineers in Wichita, Kan., the annualized voluntary termination rate has increased steadily since January, reaching the same 12-13 percent annualized rate as of August. The...