Novartis hands out 2,500 pink slips

 

In the United States also came recent news of layoffs, withMerck & Co. last week informing its employees via memo that it can't reachits goal of cutting up to 13,000 jobs by 2015—a move spurred in large part by genericcompetition pressures—simply by eliminating vacant jobs. As such, the companyhas decided to accelerate the pace of layoffs in the United States. Reportedly,by the end of October Merck will notify employees who are losing their jobs,with the major areas affected being marketing and customer solutions; managedmarkets and policy; strategy and commercial model innovation; and theneuropsychiatric and women's healthcare specialty sales teams.