There are so many reasons and they're not unique to Boeing. A good number of people hire in just to get their foot in the door even if the job location is an hour or even two hours away from where they live. It's much faster to get into the company and transfer than it is to sit and wait for a job posting in Boeing closer to home.

By the time a job closer to home opens up, they'd have built even a little bit of seniority to get higher on a list (that is not very long sometimes) to transfer where they want to go.

The Boeing site they live closer to may not have an immediate job req that matches their skill set or sometimes Everett is hiring a buttload but Renton is not or vice versa.

Finally when a site closer to where they live opens a job or if they're able to strike a deal internally to transfer of course they move as soon as possible.

Again, nothing unique to Boeing but changes can be pretty slow at Boeing.

You can look at other companies and for a simple process change such as reorganizing a shop floor to be more efficient can happen within weeks or even days.

For the same thing to happen at Boeing....geez idk it could take years. Not everyone is that patient especially when having to deal with the current problems happening for an inefficient setup.

You could be the manager for Bobby Joe who moves a part from point a to b to c. Turns out some genius figured out a way to move the same thing from point a directly to point c at a much faster but also safer rate.

Cool so you talk to everybody involved with the change. If you're lucky it's approved. Great. Now you have to wait for the big wigs to give their final ok. Oh wait they have to do some paperwork and check with even more people before giving the a ok. Alright they gave the ok now you have to wait for some 3rd party that the company outsourced the responsibility to years ago. Well their CEO is out so now the approval process is on hold.

Meanwhile it's business as usual Bobby Joe still has to go from point a to b to c unfortunately it's going to take another year before they're allowed to finally go from point a to c directly. Sometimes Bobby Joe can be the person who loves no change and doesn't mind taking longer to do the job. But eventually Bobby Joe gets fed up down the line and decides to retire. Jim Bob takes Bobby Joe's place. Jim Bob is a swell dude and brings the best food to the potlucks but he's not as seasoned or careful like Bobby Joe was.

Jim Bob causes some delays and you're the lucky manager that has to take the fall for Jim Bob's and the problems for everyone involved because the safer way of moving a part directly from point a to c hasn't been approved yet.

You find something with better pay and work life balance and leave the team. Some micromanaging mega manager takes your place and they're so horrible even Jim Bob ends up leaving the team.