Boeing suppliers fear long-term jobs hit from strike

Boeing's two-week-old strike has forced aerospace supplier Pathfinder Manufacturing to furlough 14 out of the company's 54 employees, and CEO Dave Trader fears he may need to send more home if the stoppage grinds on.<br/>Pathfinder runs a project to attract new recruits to the aerospace industry, and trains them alongside skilled workers at its facility yards away from Boeing's Everett jet factory outside Seattle, the largest manufacturing building in the world. Besides the 14 workers, the strike has sent high school students training for aerospace careers at Pathfinder back to their regular classrooms, in a double blow to a sector struggling for skilled labor. "We want to keep them on, so we’re trying to help them the best that we can, but at the same time I’m trying to keep this company afloat," said Trader, 60, who has led Pathfinder through most of its 33-year existence. Some 30,000 machinists downed tools in Boeing's West Coast factories on Sept. 13, halting production of the best-selling 737 MAX and older 767 and 777 wide-body programs. The company's supply chain is now fretting about how to retain thousands of workers set to be furloughed in the coming weeks during the planemaker's first strike in 16 years. Of nine suppliers contacted by Reuters, five said they had begun placing workers on furlough or holding off on investments. A separate strike at aerospace group Textron highlights broader labor market pressures in the aerospace industry.<br/>