Abbott to cut 3,000 jobs globally, none in Lake Co.

By Bruce Japsen
Posted Sep. 21, 2010 at 9:52 a.m.

Drug and medical product giant Abbott Laboratories said this morning it would cut about 3,000 jobs worldwide. But there will be no reductions in Lake County, home to the company’s sprawling Abbott Park headquarters.

The cuts, which amount to about 3 percent of its global workforce, come in the wake of its acquisition earlier this year of Solvay SA’s drug business. Abbott has 93,000 employees worldwide, including 13,000 in Illinois that are largely at its campus just east of the Tri-State Tollway.

The workforce reductions will result in total pre-tax charges of between $810 million and $870 million ocver the next years to cover the expenses of the acquistion and consolidation of various business units including research operations, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this morning.

The price of Abbott stock fell 17 cents a share to $52.09 in trading this morning on the New York Stock Exchange.

“This plan streamlines operations, improves efficiencies and reduces costs in certain Solvay sites and functions as well as in Certain Abbott and Solvay commercial organizations in various countries,” Abbott said in its SEC filing this morning. “The majority of the savings are targeted are to be realized by 2012.”

Abbott’s purchase of Solvay was one of the company’s largest acquisitions in its history at more than $6 billion. Abbott chief executive Miles White has said the deal was necessary to keep the company’s portfolio of products diverse. Across the drug industry, Abbott and other companies are facing expiring patents on certain drugs that will lead to cheaper generic rivals that tend to be the preferred choice of consumers and employers who pick up an ever growing tab for health care services.

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