BOEING has told more than 400 members of its professional aerospace trade union in the United States that they will be losing their jobs, it was reported on Saturday.

The job cuts are part of thousands planned as the company struggles to recover from long term financial and regulatory troubles and an eight week strike by machinists.

The notices went out last week to members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, The Seattle Times reported. 

The workers will remain on the payroll through to mid-January.

Boeing announced in October that it planned to cut 10 per cent of its workforce, about 17,000 jobs, in the coming months. Chief executive officer Kelly Ortberg told employees the company must “reset its workforce levels to align with our financial reality.”

The union said that the cuts had affected 438 members. The union’s local chapter has 17,000 Boeing employees who are largely based in Washington, with some in Oregon, California and Utah.

Of those 438 workers, 218 are members of the union’s professional unit, which includes engineers and scientists. The rest are members of the technical unit, which includes analysts, planners, technicians and skilled tradespeople.

Eligible employees will receive career transition services and subsidised healthcare benefits for up to three months. Workers will also receive severance, typically about one week of pay for every year of service.

Boeing’s unionised machinists began returning to work earlier this month following the strike.

But Mr Ortberg said the strike did not cause the job cuts, which he described as a result of overstaffing.

Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, has been in financial and regulatory trouble since a panel blew off the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane in January. 

Production rates slowed to a crawl, and the US Federal Aviation Administration capped production of the 737 Max at 38 planes per month, a threshold Boeing has yet to reach.