As of Thursday evening, Boeing had sent layoff notices to 438 union members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace. The union's local chapter has 17,000 Boeing employees who are largely based in Washington state, with some in states of Oregon, California and Utah.

The job cuts are part of a company-wide 10 per cent reduction in labour, which involves about 17,000 jobs across Boeing's commercial, defence and global services division, Xinhua news agency reported.

The company announced the job cuts in October and began notifying those workers who will be impacted on Wednesday, the union said.