Boeing to close Wichita, Kan., factory

Boeing announced today that it will shut its Wichita, Kan., plant where generations of workers have assembled bombers for the US military. More than 2,160 workers will lose their jobs when the company closes the factory in 2013, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP:

Employment at the plant peaked during World War II as the company churned out four bombers a day. Its 40,000 workers included President Barack Obama's beloved grandmother Madelyn Dunham, known as "Toot," who did her part for the war effort by working the night shift as a supervisor on the B-29 bomber assembly line.

Job reductions at the plant will begin in the third quarter of 2012, Boeing said in a statement today, Bloomberg News reported.

"In this time of defense budget reductions, as well as shifting customer priorities, Boeing has decided to close its operations in Wichita to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and drive competitiveness," Mark Bass, vice president and general manager for the Boeing Defense, Space & Security facility in Wichita, said in the statement, the AP reported.

Boeing and other defense contractors are facing $450 billion in cuts in the Defense Department budget over the next decade, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Wichita’s loss will be other cities’ gain. The company will split up work on a new $35 billion order of 179 Air Force refueling tankers that was expected to be filled at the Wichita plant, the AP reported. The Seattle area will gain 200 tanker-building jobs; Oklahoma City will gain about 800 tanker engineering and modification jobs plus 100 support jobs; and San Antonio, Tex., will gain 300 to 400 new jobs in future aircraft maintenance, modification and support.

Leaving Wichita will be “a historic moment, but reflects the economic reality of a changing and shrinking defense budget,” Howard Rubel, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. in New York, told Bloomberg News.

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