Boeing Moving 600 IT Jobs to St. Louis

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Boeing plans to move around 600 IT jobs to St. Louis as part of its restructuring, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The aerospace company began talking about its restructuring and cost-cutting plans back in March. The Seattle Times reported Saturday that the company would shed 1,500 IT jobs in the Puget Sound region over the next three years. Boeing employs approximately 7,900 IT workers.

Some engineering work for airline customers is to be moved to Long Beach, Calif. St. Louis is the headquarters for the company’s defense unit, and other jobs are expected to be shifted to Charleston, S.C., where it has ramped up production of its 787 Dreamliner.

The new jobs in St. Louis are expected to be a mix of relocation and new hiring. Since the company moved its headquarters from Seattle to Chicago in 2001, the company has been steadily moving work to less expensive, non-union locales.

In the Seattle area, Boeing competes for talent with big IT shops such as Microsoft and Amazon as well as a hot startup scene.

Reductions in IT staff are expected to include layoffs, attrition and retirements, especially among non-union systems engineers, database administrators and applications developers. Another round of layoffs is expected in September.

Boeing’s IT staff handles everything from supporting laptops to designing complex aircraft software.

Spokesman Andrew Favreau is quoted in the Post-Dispatch:

“We’re trying to support increased demand without dramatically increasing cost. A big portion of that is bringing people who work on similar tools and technology together in one place, to help them share knowledge and provide the most efficient support possible.”