Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will cut over 200 jobs at its Irish manufacturing facilities as part of a global cost-cutting plan.
The company is set to lay off up to 210 staff at its sites in Grange Castle, Co Dublin, Ringaskiddy, Co Cork and Newbridge, Co Kildare. Pfizer employs around 5,000 people in Ireland across five locations.
The cuts will be made later this year and continue into 2025 through a mixture of voluntary and targeted redundancies.
The job losses are part of a $1.5bn cost-cutting programme announced by Pfizer in May, which follows on from a $3.5bn raft of cuts last year that resulted in 100 redundancies at Newbridge.
In a statement, Pfizer said the cuts were a “very last resort” and that it was “actively engaging with colleagues and their representatives”.
It added that all decisions would be made with “transparency, respect, and in compliance with all applicable laws.”
Details of the redundancy packages have not been announced, but it is believed Pfizer have offered six weeks’ pay for each year of service, plus two weeks’ pay.
In late 2022, Pfizer announced 400-500 new jobs at part of a €1.2bn capital investment programme at Grange Castle to double the site’s manufacturing capacity, and a spokesperson said that a “substantial number of new roles at the site by 2027″.
The group also noted that it has invested $9bn in Ireland since establishing operations here in 1969.
The Newbridge job cuts announced last year followed collapsing sales of its Paxlovid Covid antiviral medicine, which is produced at both the Kildare site and in Ringaskiddy.
“Pfizer recently launched a multi-year, multi-phased programme designed to assess the efficiency of our manufacturing focused on finding operational efficiencies to increase productivity within the network,” Pfizer said of the latest cuts.
“As part of this process, we’ve conducted a series of evaluations and have proposed a reduction in the number of people supporting our overall manufacturing operations in Ireland.
“These proposals impact colleagues across the Grange Castle, Ringaskiddy and Newbridge sites during the last quarter of 2024 and into 2025.
“Reducing jobs is always the very last resort and we have been doing all we can to reduce costs elsewhere and minimise the impact on our people,” they continued.
“All job-related decisions will be made with transparency, respect and in compliance with all applicable laws.”
(Pic: Getty Images)