Boeing Co. plans to employ as many as 600 workers at a new information technology “center of excellence” in St. Louis, according to a published report in the Seattle Times.
The move comes as the aerospace giant plans to shed 1,500 IT jobs in Washington state over the next three years, the newspaper reports.
Details on the job cuts in the Puget Sound region, where Boeing employs about 4,700 IT workers, are to be announced by the Chicago-based company on Monday, the newspaper said.
Affected positions include systems engineers, applications developers and database administrators.
In March, the company said it was cutting 800 IT positions in Washington state; the latest announcement nearly doubles that number.
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Doug Rasmussen, of the St. Louis County Economic Council, said discussions with Boeing had been under way for at least a month.
“We know there will be several hundred jobs,” he said. “We’re still waiting on the details.”
A veteran Boeing employee, who asked not to be identified, told the Seattle Times that the two new IT centers in St. Louis and North Charleston, S.C., would initially grow to 600 people each but that only 300 to 400 of the 1,200 would be current Puget Sound-area employees.
The rest will be new hires or contract labor.
The high cost of living in the Seattle area and competition from other tech employers, such as Microsoft, were cited as factors in the company’s decision, the employee said.
Boeing has already shifted engineers and manufacturing from that region.
“Six weeks ago the website dice.com ranked St. Louis as the fastest-growing market in the U.S. for tech jobs,” said Steve Johnson, an executive vice president with the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, speaking generally about a potential Boeing move.
“This development reinforces that trend.”
