Kelly Ortberg-led Boeing is hiring around 100 to 140 factory workers a week, the aviation giant’s highest pace since 2024, as the jetmaker adopts a dual strategy: replacing retirees and increasing staffing to support higher production rates and new aircraft models.
As per Jon Holden, vice president specialising in training and apprenticeships at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), Boeing’s unionised factory workers in the Pacific Northwest (region having major production hubs in Everett, Renton, and Auburn, Washington) now number more than 34,000 and are “heading higher.”
“We’re seeing strong interest as we hire in Puget Sound and across the enterprise to support our production rate increases,” a Boeing spokesperson told Reuters, confirming Holden’s remarks.
The IAM represented about 33,000 Boeing workers in the Pacific Northwest region in 2024 when Holden headed that local union during a seven-week strike over a new contract.
“Boeing needs to staff a fourth Seattle-area production line, known as the North Line, for the planemaker’s strong-selling 737 MAX narrowbody jet,” Holden said, adding that the aviation giant further faces the challenge of supporting production of the 777X widebody that is still awaiting certification.
Boeing is also working to expand its satellite production capacity and launch a new satellite platform. It is targeting 26 satellite deliveries in 2026, up from four in 2025.
In Washington, aerospace manufacturing jobs had dropped to around 79,000 in August 2025, before climbing back to 81,800 in February 2026, according to the state’s Employment Security Department.
The aviation sector, in general, is looking at the prospect of witnessing a major employment boom, as companies are hiring to meet demand from airlines for more fuel-efficient jets, apart from addressing growing industrial activities in the space sector and rising defence spending due to geopolitical tensions around the globe.
Karen Arlak, chief human resources officer at Honeywell Aerospace, told Reuters that the supplier giant expects to add over 1,200 positions in 2026 in areas such as engineering and manufacturing due to growth in the commercial aftermarket, defence, and space sectors.
Talking about Boeing, the company’s current demand for factory workers still trails its aggressive hiring from 2023 to 2024, when it needed to add workers following the COVID pandemic and the earlier grounding of the 737 MAX after two deadly crashes in 2019.
“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,” Holden concluded.