Total Pfizer jobs cut since 2005: 30,900

First, we wondered who'd make a deal. Then we watched what shareholders would say, then looked to the regulators for their OK. Now that 2009's last megamerger has closed, all eyes are on the when, where, and how many of job cuts. And today's no exception.

Thanks to Jim Edwards at BNet Pharma, we now know just how many employees Pfizer has terminated since 2005. According to its official quarterly filing with the SEC, the drugmaker expensed employee termination costs for a total of 30,900 people, counting from June 2005 through September 27, 2009.

As of the end of the third quarter, the company had laid off 26,300 employees, leaving an estimated 4,600 more to be terminated. The company plans to lay off 19,500 as a result of the Wyeth merger and has said that 8,000 of those jobs were included in Pfizer's ongoing cost-cutting plan. Leaving 11,500, correct? It looks as if the 4,600 mentioned in the Q3 SEC filing would be part of that 8,000. So, we're looking at 16,100 jobs to be shed.

The question is, do the 8,000 jobs Pfizer included in the merger-related cuts amount to all of the jobs set for the axe from the Pfizer side of the business? Meaning that the 11,500 would be from the Wyeth side? Or are those 11,500 remaining merger-related cuts set to be shared? We'll have to wait for some official word on that.

Ironically, Pfizer is hiring in India, and Eli Lilly is staffing up in Japan and emerging markets while plotting 5,500 layoffs in the U.S. According to India's Economic Times, Pfizer India is looking to hire 200 over the next few months and plans to continue staffing up even as it joins hands with Wyeth India.

- see Pfizer's SEC filing
- read BNet's take on Pfizer
- check out the Economic Times piece

ALSO: Monsanto is purchasing Pfizer's Chesterfield Village Research Center in Missouri for $435 million. Release

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