Airplane manufacturer Boeing saw its new commercial airplane orders drop by more than 60% in 2009, although the company increased deliveries by nearly 30% following the successful resolution of a crippling labor strike.
Both of those figures trailed the company’s main rival, Airbus.
The Chicago-based company – which is building a massive manufacturing facility in the S.C. Lowcountry – has also been dealing with severe delays in the launch of its 787 Dreamliner. That airplane finally flew in December, and Boeing hopes to begin delivering the plane to customers in the early fourth quarter of this year.
Boeing currently has a backlog of some 3,400 planes – although how big a dent they plan on making in that total won’t be known until later this month, when the company releases its fourth quarter earnings.
South Carolina’s facility – which state officials claim will create 3,800 direct jobs (not all of them S.C. jobs, though) – won’t begin producing 787 Dreamliners until at least 2012, company officials say.
In a state with a 12.3% unemployment rate (the fifth highest mark in the nation) Boeing’s announcement was greeted with much rejoicing by state lawmakers, although many believe that the state offered an excessively generous incentive package.
For the tit and tat on that, click here and here.
We supported this particular deal (at least the details of it that have been made public), although our point all along has been that state lawmakers need to keep their eye on the ball as it relates to job creation, something they have failed miserably to do in the past.
After all, one major economic development announcement every fifteen years isn’t going to cut it, and South Carolina routinely penalizes entrepreneurs, small business owners, industrial firms and other would-be job creators with a litany of anti-competitive laws, taxes, fees and regulations.
Whatever approach to economic development Palmetto politicos support (we’re solidly in the “small business soil conditions” camp, btw), it goes without saying that everyone will be watching Boeing’s numbers very closely in 2010 and beyond.
South Carolina, after all, is invested now …
By Old Bike Dude January 8, 2010 at 10:32 am
Over half of those 3800 jobs and all the higher paying positions will be out of state transfers and recruits. Of course as soon as these folks change their drivers license the State Pols will moisten themselves in elation of the creation of jobs for South Carolinians.
By southernmapart January 8, 2010 at 11:14 pm
True, our politicians do not favor our small businesses. After talking with a few officials, who could make a difference to small business, there are too many who have had “positions” all their life and have no idea about what a “job” is in definitive terms.