Boeing has announced it will lay off over 2,000 employees in Washington and Oregon, as the company prepares to reduce its global workforce by 17,000 positions, which is approximately 10% of its total staff.

The details of the layoffs surfaced after Boeing filed information with the Washington State Employment Security Department, which noted that the layoffs are set to begin on December 20.

As per the department’s layoff notice database, 2,199 employees in Washington will be affected. Reuters reports that about 438 members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) received layoff notifications last week.

Of those, 218 are engineers, and 220 are technicians, according to Reuters.

This decision to lay off workers follows a challenging year for Boeing, which has faced issues related to aircraft safety and strikes at some of its facilities.

Boeing’s intention to scale back 17,000 jobs

In October, Boeing’s CEO Kelly Ortberg stated the company would reduce its workforce by 10% overall.

“In the upcoming months, we will be working to decrease our total workforce by roughly 10 percent. This will include reductions among executives, management, and staff,” Ortberg noted. “The circumstances of our business and the need for future recovery entail making difficult choices.”

A period of strikes and safety challenges

Boeing has recently been struggling with strikes and safety issues. In October, workers in the Seattle area went on strike for the first time since 2008.

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), whose members participated in the strike, reached an agreement with the company, resulting in the strike ending on November 4, but layoffs are now a possibility.

Additionally, in September, the National Transportation Safety Board gave an urgent alert about Boeing 737 aircraft, indicating that a component of the rudder control system on these models could fail in cold temperatures.