The day after President Obama was elected to a second term, Boeing announced a 30 percent cut in managerial positions in the company. 

Those being laid off were told the company is an “affordability drive” which has already allowed it to cut costs by $2.2 billion since 2010. The employees were told the company’s goal is to cut another $1.6 billion between 2013 and 2015.

Boeing says the cuts are not part of the president’s $500 billion in defense cuts, set to take effect in January 2013. But this is hard to believe, particularly since other defense contractors, like Lockheed Martin, have been warning that the president’s military cuts were going to lead to job losses in defense.

In fact, in September, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors were threatening to go ahead and lay their workers off before the election so voters could see the impact of Obama’s cuts, but Obama’s team talked them out of it. At the time, the Obama administration told them it would be “inappropriate” to lay the workers off ahead of the election.

Looks like at least one of the defense contractors was able to hold out till the day after the election.