UPDATE (12:24 p.m. PT) — Insitu, a Washington-based drone-manufacturing company owned by Boeing, will be making cuts to its workforce.
Insitu’s CEO, Esina Alic, announced the layoffs Tuesday to employees, said Jenny Beloy, with the company’s media relations team. Beloy said the amount of jobs that will be cut is still being discussed.
Market challenges prompted the company’s leadership team to initiate the employee layoffs, Beloy said. “We’re seeing an increased need to reduce costs and be more competitive, and so they [Insitu’s leadership team] figured out that this was part of the adjustment we needed to make that would help us better position for future competition and really continue to provide more value to our customers,” Beloy said.
She said she believes affected employees will receive an official 60-day notice soon.
Insitu employs about 1,000 people in the Columbia River Gorge area, in both Washington and Oregon, and 500 people at its other locations domestically and internationally. Beloy could not confirm the locations of the layoffs, but she said they could happen anywhere.
“My understanding is that they’re looking enterprise-wide,” she said. “It’s not just engineering jobs or production jobs or anything, it’s across the board.”
Beloy said the company is working to offer resources to employees, such as information on jobs at Boeing and other short and long-term employment opportunities.
The is the most recent announcement of layoffs affecting employees in Oregon. Stimson Lumber and Union Pacific also recently announced job cuts.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect an updated timeframe in which employees might be notified about layoffs.
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