GE Healthcare ($GE) has eliminated 81 manufacturing jobs at its facilities near Milwaukee. Affected employees were notified last Friday, spokesman Matt Kuhn said, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal.
"It's a relatively small number of people but it's a difficult action," Kuhn said, adding the move was a result of a tough economic environment, especially in the U.S. and Europe.
The company, which employs about 6,500 in southeastern Wisconsin, has been relatively quiet about the job cuts, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes.
The layoffs come a month after the company announced it was moving X-ray business headquarters from Waukesha, WI to China as part of its parent-company's plan to invest $2 billion in that country, the Business Insider reported at the time. GE's Wisconsin operations manufacture diagnostic imaging and X-ray equipment, computed tomography, magnetic resonance, ultrasound and molecular imaging, the Journal Sentinel reports.
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