Lilly Lays Off More Employees and Vows to Remain Lean
Despite assertions by its CEO that there isn’t enough scientific talent in the US, Eli Lilly announced that it will lay off a couple of thousand employees within the next 90 days. Most of the cuts will take place in Indianapolis at four different sites where the company currently employees about 13,000 workers. According to an article in today’s Indianapolis Star
“The struggling Indianapolis company, which has been cutting thousands of jobs in recent months, told the state on Monday that its downsizing is not temporary, but for the long haul.
The reductions in force at the Indianapolis sites of employment are expected to be permanent," wrote Kay Jackson, Lilly's senior director of human resources, in a letter to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. She added that the cuts, when added up, are not expected to be more than 33 percent of the head count at any one site, or more than 500 workers at any site."
Like most of its rival big pharma companies, Lilly has cut the number of full-time equivalent workers by about 2,100 worldwide since last September. That's when it announced it would cut a total of 5,500 workers worldwide by 2011 to save $1 billion in annual costs. The reason for the cuts; an expected steep falloff in revenues over the next few years when the patents on Lilly's blockbuster drugs begin to expire and face low-priced generic competition
John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D, Lilly’s CEO, contends that the lack of innovation and new product development at most American pharmaceutical companies can be explained by a dearth of qualified and adequately trained American scientists. Maybe this is why most pharma R&D job are currently being outsourced to China, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe? Alternatively, it may be cheaper to employ US-trained foreign nationals in these places rather than high priced American scientists who perform similar jobs in the US.
Until next time...
Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (forget Indiana-not there is anything wrong with it)
