Boeing stock at 52-week lows as plane maker furloughs workers to preserve cash
2024-09-21 17:34:24
After a tumultuous year, the last thing Boeing needed was a union strike.
Shares of the aircraft manufacturing giant touched new 52-week lows on Friday as a labor dispute involving its largest unionized workforce — the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) — was set to enter into a second week.
“Boeing — its entire infrastructure, its entire founding, if you will — right now is under severe stress. I think they’re going to be forced to try to settle this as quickly as they can,” Mike Boyd, president of aviation research and consulting company Boyd Group International, told Yahoo Finance in a recent interview.
It’s estimated that the first full week of the strike has already cost Boeing’s workers and shareholders at least $571 million, according to consulting firm Anderson Economic Group.
This past week, Boeing laid out aggressive cost-cutting measures culminating in the announcement of temporary furloughs expected to impact “a large number” of executives, managers, and employees.
“While this is a tough decision that impacts everybody, it is in an effort to preserve our long-term future and help us navigate through this very difficult time,” Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg wrote in a note to employees on Wednesday.
Ortberg, who took over the CEO job last month, said he and his leadership team would also take a pay cut for the duration of the strike.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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