BMS to cut 3% of workforce

Another drugmaker has announced job cuts. Bristol-Myers Squibb said Thursday afternoon that it will cut three percent of its global workforce--a total of roughly 840 jobs--during the next six months.

"The ultimate goal of the effort is not only to reduce cost, but also to create an organization that is more agile," Tracy Furey, a BMS spokeswoman, tells Bloomberg in an e-mail. Before the cuts, BMS has 28,000 workers, she adds. The company earlier announced plans to slash more than $2.5 billion in expenses by 2012--and eliminated 7,000 jobs last year.

Sonia Choi, another company spokeswoman, tells the Wall Street Journal that the company is "reviewing the organization across the board" and that there is no specific area it is targeting. 

BMS wasn't the only company to announce job cuts this week. Abbott Laboratories is going to take the axe to its R&D operations as part of a broad plan to trim 3,000 workers in a restructuring inspired by its merger with Solvay. The cuts--which amount to three percent of the company's total work force--will be made primarily in Europe, a spokesperson notes, with layoffs also planned for sales, manufacturing and in the corporate ranks.

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