Boeing IDS slow to implement announced layoffs

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- Workers at Boeing's defense plant in Wichita are hanging on to their jobs for a bit longer than expected as the company has been slow to implement planned layoffs.

Officials at the company's Integrated Defense Systems a year ago said they would cut 800 workers by mid-2009 as work on some existing programs wound down.

Boeing spokesman Jarrod Bartlett says the company now expects to cut only 500 of those jobs by the end off the year with the remainder happening by mid-2010. That's when work on modifying 767 airplanes into refueling tankers for Japan and Italy winds down.

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Information from: The Wichita Eagle, http://www.kansas.com