Drug firm Pfizer to axe 785 jobs
Workers inside the grounds of the Pfizer Sterile Plant in Dun Laoghaire, south Dublin
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Tuesday May 18 2010
Some 785 highly skilled pharmaceutical workers in Ireland were braced for redundancy after Pfizer revealed plans for swingeing global cutbacks.
The Government insisted the devastating cost-cutting, seven months after the multi-national's 68 billion euro takeover of Wyeth, is nothing to do with the state of the economy.
The flagship firm, one of Ireland's biggest employers, confirmed employees' worst fears with three factories in Cork and Dun Laoghaire earmarked for closure and sale and a fourth, in Newbridge, Co Kildare, hit by 275 lay-offs.
Tanaiste Mary Coughlan, standing in for Taoiseach Brian Cowen who is at a summit in Madrid, stressed enterprise officials are confident the factories could be sold, possibly saving jobs.
"I think it is important to say that the decision made by Pfizer has nothing to do with the Irish economy," Ms Coughlan said. "It has to do about the fact that Pfizer has purchased Wyeth and we have an over-capacity globally. I think it is important to say that."
Pfizer detailed the cuts with Cork, in the long run potentially the worst hit, facing the closure of two factories - the Shanbally biotechnology plant, with 75 jobs, and the Loughbeg tabletting site, which has 225 staff.
Dun Laoghaire has also been earmarked for sale, with the threat of 210 lay-offs. The factories are likely to shut any time from 18 months to five years from now.
Pfizer said the cutbacks are part of the pharmaceutical giant's plans to reduce its global workforce by 6,000 and will be complete by 2015.
The company also said it hopes the total number of lay-offs would not reach 785 as it hunts for buyers for the three factories - a scheme it has adopted before.
Ireland bore the brunt of the global cuts and closures along with Puerto Rico and the US while job losses were also announced in Germany and the UK.
Press Association
