The Boeing Co. said it has recovered a stolen laptop computer containing personal data on 382,000 workers and retirees.

In an e-mail to employees within the past week, Senior Vice President Rick Stephens said Boeing and an outside security consultant had determined that the files containing personal information had not been read.

He said the company will make good on its offer to provide free credit monitoring for affected employees.

The employee who was responsible for the laptop was fired soon after it was stolen, and Boeing says the company now forbids recording any personal information on the hard drive of a laptop.

Instead, all such information must be accessed on in-house servers behind a firewall, spokesman Tim Neale said.

The recovered laptop, which was taken in early December 2006, is the third Boeing laptop containing significant amounts of personal information to be stolen, and the only one to be recovered.

The first, taken in November 2005, contained information on 161,000 workers. The second, stolen in April 2006, had data on about 3,600 employees.

Additional laptops containing personal information also have been stolen, Neale said, though the information on them pertained to only a "very small" number of workers.