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Anglo-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca is to shed another 6,000 from its workforce, the group has confirmed.
The firm’s global business will now lose 15,000 employees when the latest number is added to its existing programme of cuts.
AstraZeneca employs around 11,000 people in the UK. It is not yet known how the job losses, to be enforced by 2013, will impact on these posts.
The company, which has shed around 8,000 posts since 2007, has already begun informing staff of the further job cuts.
David Brennan, chief executive of AstraZeneca, said despite company facing tougher conditions due to the downturn, the job reductions were “not a reaction to the recession”.
The firm said said: “While our business is recession resilient, it is not recession proof. It will be nothing like the impact on other sectors, but there will be some.”
AstraZeneca employs around 65,000 people worldwide, down from 67,000 last year, a figure which also takes into account the addition of staff in some areas, such as its biologics division.
Copyright Press Association 2009
