Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems will temporarily lay off about 700 workers as the plane maker’s machinists’ strike enters its sixth week, a spokesman for the supplier said Friday.

More than 32,000 Boeing workers went on strike on Sept. 13 after overwhelmingly voting to reject a tentative labor agreement with Boeing, adding to the plane maker’s financial pressures and creating new challenges for CEO Kelly Ortberg, who took over more than two months ago.

The furloughs will affect about 5% of Spirit’s U.S. workforce, according to Spirit’s latest annual report, at its largest plant in Wichita, Kansas., or about 5% of the company’s U.S. workforce. Meanwhile, Boeing and its machinists’ union remain in an impasse, and Spirit is considering further layoffs.

“If the strike continues beyond November, we will have to implement layoffs and additional furloughs,” Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino told CNBC on Friday.

Ortberg will hold his first earnings call with investors next Wednesday. Last week, as the company’s losses continued to mount, Ortberg announced a series of major measures aimed at cutting costs, including a 10% layoff of about 17,000 employees. Boeing will also stop commercial production of the 767 after orders are completed in 2027, and said its long-delayed 777X wide-body jet will not debut until 2026, pushing production back another year.

Boeing is raising liquidity through debt or equity.

Buccino said the Spirit employees affected by the 21-day furloughs are about 700 people who work on Boeing’s 777 and 767 programs, for which Spirit has stockpiled “significant inventory.” He added that Spirit employees working on Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max are not affected. Still, work on all three programs has been stalled by the strike.

Boeing agreed to acquire Spirit this summer, but the two companies don’t expect the deal to close until mid-2025. Reuters earlier reported the latest furloughs at Spirit.
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