Smaller layoffs add up to 1,000-plus

A few layoffs here, a few there, a few empty posts unfilled ... and pretty soon, you have 1,000 job cuts. That's the story this week as Amgen, Celera and IMS Health all reduced staffing. On the plus side of the ledger, however, GlaxoSmithKline postponed 200 layoffs in the U.K. as it gears up for swine flu.

Amgen laid off about 100 workers earlier this week, the Pacific Coast Business Times reported. This most recent round of layoffs was part of the company's "ongoing evaluation of staffing levels," an Amgen spokeswoman said, with the cuts coming in manufacturing and quality control. Back in May, the company had laid off about 100 as it outsourced its facilities management.

Meanwhile, Celera announced "immediate" cost-cutting, including a reduction of about 80 jobs, or 13 percent of its workforce. The company says 2009 isn't turning out as well as it had forecast early this year, and it now expects revenues to come in "significantly below" those predictions. "We believe these restructuring actions allow us to optimize our organization to best take advantage of future opportunities for growth," CEO Kathy Ordoñez said, "while addressing current business conditions and reducing costs."

But by far the biggest cuts come this week at IMS Health, where 850 positions are on the chopping block. That's 11 percent of the company's global workforce. The company is suffering along with the pharma industry, as its industry customers "significantly rein in their spending," CEO David Carlucci said in a statement. Second-quarter profits dropped 19 percent and the company expects to miss full-year predictions as well.

The good news? As Glaxo sees its fortunes surge along with H1N1 [1] swine flu cases, the company is postponing job cuts and calling back some laid-off workers. The latest: GSK announced it would put off some of its previously announced cuts at Barnard Castle, U.K., where 200 staffers had been set for elimination. This after about 160 were recalled to another facility in France.

- see the statement from IMS Health
[2]- check out the Celera release [3]
- read the GSK piece [4] in the Evening Gazette
- see the Business Times story [5]
- get the news [6] from Reuters
- more [7] on the Amgen cuts from PCBT
- and Reuters reports [8] on IMS Health

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Pharma layoffs continue to roil U.K. [10]
Pharma staffers feeling insecure and 'overloaded' [11]