AstraZeneca cuts 250 north west jobs

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AstraZeneca cuts 250 north west jobs

Nov 23, 2008

By Alan Jones

MORE job cuts were announced by manufacturing giants with north west operations today.

AstraZeneca said it plans a reduction of 1,400 in its workforce worldwide, with 250 jobs to go at its Macclesfield site, between next year and 2013, in addition to previously announced changes.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs internationally, including 140 in the UK, after reviewing the impact of the current economic `uncertainties', the aerospace giant announced.

The cuts come on top of recent redundancies announced by companies including BT, building supplier Wolseley, CitiGroup, JCB, Leyland, Virgin Media, Friends Provident, Yell and GlaxoSmithKline.

Drugs giant AstraZeneca said it planned to accelerate its global manufacturing and supply improvement initiative, launched in 2007, `to address the increasingly challenging healthcare environment facing the company and the entire pharmaceutical industry'.

The Macclesfield operation would focus on hi-tech medicines and packing, including packing for Europe, Middle East and African markets, while some more conventional formulation would transfer to Latin America and China from 2011.

`Significant packing' for Europe, the Middle East and Africa would, it said, transfer to Macclesfield site from next year.

AZ has 2,000 staff at its manufacturing site in Macclesfield. Last year it announced 3,000 job losses by 2010 in its global manufacturing operation.

Rolls-Royce said it had started consulting unions about the job losses at its assembly and test facility in Derby, part of its civil aerospace business. It employs 39,000 workers globally, 60 per cent of them in the UK.

"Rolls-Royce has been reviewing the possible impact of current economic uncertainties, delays on individual programmes, such as the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787, and the benefits of the group's continuing focus on efficiency," the company said. Up to 2,000 jobs would be cut in 2009, it said.

The cuts account for around four per cent of the total workforce of Rolls-Royce, which said it will now enter into detailed consultations at sites affected.

Rolls-Royce, synonymous with British engineering for more than a century, since motor car businessmen Henry Royce and the Hon Charles Rolls agreed to form a partnership during a meeting at the Midland Hotel in Manchester in May 1904, announced in January that it would continue its focus on efficiency by reducing by 2,300 during 2008 the number of staff working in overhead functions, a programme that is now largely complete.

The company has been reducing its temporary workforce in a bid to avoid compulsory redundancies.Unite national officer Bernie Hamilton said the announcement was `bitterly disappointing'.

Source: Manchester Evening News

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