Boeing to lay off an additional 5,500

CHICAGO, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- U.S. airplane maker Boeing Co. said Wednesday it would cut 5,500 additional jobs this year, bringing its layoff total for 2009 to 10,000, as sales have slumped.

Boeing said earlier that 4,500 jobs in the Commercial Airplanes division would be cut, CNNMoney.com reported. The new round of job losses would "cut across all of our geographies," Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney said. "Some are in the state of Washington."

Boeing's announcement came as it forecast lower earnings this year, as orders for planes were expected to decline.

"This is nothing new to Boeing," said Peter Arment at consulting firm American Technology Research. "They have a lot of experience dealing with cyclical markets and rapidly increasing and decreasing employment levels."

The announcement adds to a total of about 75,000 jobs losses already announced by U.S. companies this week. The Labor Department said Wednesday mass layoffs in 2008 -- layoffs of 50 or more from the same company -- were the highest since 2001.