FLORIDA — Boeing is planning to slash more than 100 jobs in Florida, including the Space Coast, starting in January 2025, according to the Florida Department of Commerce.
The company announced in November it will layoff 141 positions from locations across the state, including in Central Florida and Tampa Bay. In all, Boeing employs around 2,500 people in Florida.
Among the number of layoffs, Boeing is cutting 26 positions at the Kennedy Space Center, 20 in Titusville and one at Cape Canaveral.
In a letter sent to Florida’s Department of Commerce, Boeing said layoffs are expected to begin on Jan. 17, for most employees and bumping rights do not exist.
Boeing has had a series of issues in 2024 alone, from a door being ripped off during an Alaska Airlines flight at 16,000 feet, to the Starliner saga that saw the capsule suffering from helium leaks and thruster issues.
The Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts Cmdr. Barry "Butch" Wilmore and pilot Sunita "Suni" Williams were supposed to go to the International Space Station for a little over a week during the maiden test flight of Starliner but now will spend about eight months at the space station and will return home on competitor’s SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.
Boeing has been contracted to build the Artemis moon program’s Space Launch System rocket’s core stage. The 212-foot-tall rocket was used during 2022’s Artemis I uncrewed mission to the moon.
In July of this year, the core stage for the Artemis II mission — which will return humans to the moon to orbit Earth’s lunar sister — was delivered to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
It is unclear how these layoffs will impact the various space programs associated with Boeing.
Spectrum News reached out to Boeing for comment and has not yet heard back.