Just a few days before telegraphing plans to “rightsize” its pharma infrastructure at an investor meeting this week, Johnson & Johnson quietly scuttled a clutch of jobs in the Northeast.
J&J is laying off 64 employees at its Johnson & Johnson Services location on West 26th street in Manhattan, according to a New York state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act notice labeled as “plant layoff.”
The business there is focused on pharmaceutical supplies, according to the filing, and the reason given for the job cuts was listed as “economic.” The cull will take place over two weeks from Jan. 13, 2023 through Jan. 26, 2023.
It's not immediately clear what sort of work the J&J site performs. The company did not immediately respond to Fierce Pharma's request for comment.
The address listed in the notice matches that of Johnson & Johnson's Design Center, according to unofficial internet records.
The J&J employees at the Manhattan site are not represented by a union, the company said in its WARN filing.
The WARN came a few days ahead of comments by J&J’s chief financial officer Joe Wolk, who told investors Wednesday the company wants to “rightsize” its infrastructure as a two-segment business amid the separation of its consumer health division.
“While healthcare is a very, very good business and more resilient than most, it’s not as if we’re immune to some of those dynamics,” Wolk said, referring to “macroeconomic pressures that all industries and companies are facing.”
J&J didn’t lay out specific restructuring plans, though Wolk told The Wall Street Journal employees wouldn’t feel a major squeeze.
At the top of the year, J&J counted 141,700 full-time employees among its global staff, up from 134,500 a year ago. About a third of the company’s workforce is based in North America.
Elsewhere in the Empire State, 51 New York-based Corning Pharmaceutical Technologies staffers are headed for the exit in January as the company downsizes its pharma packaging workforce.
Corning, the well-known global glass maker, also produces products like vials for the pharma industry.
Corning says it’s “[r]evised the business operating plan to better align with the company’s operating supply and customer demand.”
Two of the Corning employees being let go are salaried, while another 43 are represented by unions.