It will be a grim holiday season for a lot of employees at aerospace company Boeing (BA). While the company recently raised billions in a stock sale, and is handing out a bundle to one of its key suppliers, that money will not be keeping many Boeing employees employed. Boeing shares slid nearly 3% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading on the news.
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Boeing employees will officially start receiving layoff notices today, noted a report from KING 5 in Seattle. Most of the returning machinists will not be impacted by these layoffs, but rather “…executives, managers and employees…” will be the ones hit by this.
The layoffs even come with a timeline, the report noted, with the layoff notices hitting over the next three days, followed by transition services and a “virtual live layoff meeting.” Employees will continue to work there, however, through 2024 and into 2025, as their last day with the company will be January 17.
The Numbers Are Awful, but Deliveries are Picking Up
The numbers from October are in, and as many might have expected, they are a catastrophe. Despite the strike, Boeing managed to deliver 14 planes in October. That is, of course, a far cry from the 34 planes delivered in October 2023. However, in an unexpected twist, Boeing booked 63 orders but had no cancellations during that time. This was despite the fact that any kind of on-time delivery would be largely impossible thanks to the strike.
In addition, it seems Boeing’s space aspirations may not be completely curtailed either. Boeing just delivered two O3b mPower satellites, complete with a set of fixes that overcome the power issues that made the first six largely useless. The satellites in question, noted Spacenews, will be part of a medium Earth orbit (MEO) broadband network.
Is Boeing a Good Stock to Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on BA stock based on 15 Buys, six Holds, and two Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 31.97% loss in its share price over the past year, the average BA price target of $193.62 per share implies 38.03% upside potential.