1,200 Wyeth reps out of work

Don't tell these 1,200 Wyeth sales reps to have a nice weekend. They got pink slips on Wednesday, their jobs eliminated in the drugmaker's previously announced restructuring. They won't go away completely empty-handed, though. The reps will get severance and some continuing benefits, a Wyeth spokesman said.

You'll recall that in January, Wyeth told managers that about 10 percent of its 50,000-strong workforce would be cut by 2011. The restructuring, known as "Project Impact," is designed to cut jobs and other costs and reconfigure the business as Wyeth faces generic competition for blockbusters Protonix and Effexor.

Now, the company says the 10 percent estimate could change. "We're still evaluating the composition of our global workforce," the spokesman told the Associated Press. "Our short term-objective is to achieve a reduction in force of 4 to 6 percent by the middle of the year."

- read the story in the Boston Globe
- check out the Dow Jones article at CNN Money

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