Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is cutting a further 6,000
jobs, taking the total planned job losses to 15,000 by 2013.
The
cost cutting programme includes outsourcing IT and cutting back
on business support.
This will see a further 6,000 jobs cut on top of the 7,600 which
began to be cut in 2007.
The company expects to save $2.5bn a year as a result of the
programme. This is up from $1.4bn planned in the initial
programme.
A spokeswoman at the company said that part of the total
includes UK staff already transferred to IT service provider
Infosys Technologies as part of a
$1m outsourcing agreement. But more IT jobs could go as
business support functions are cut back. "There will be [cuts in]
some areas of business support which IT fits into," she added.
She said most of the workers affected have already been
informed.
Infosys Technologies provides end-to-end application maintenance
services to AstraZeneca's global operations in areas including
manufacturing, supply chain, finance, human resources and other
corporate functions.
In the latest announcement the company said it will
rationalisation its global supply chain further and restructure the
sales and marketing organisation and business infrastructure.
In March, the company signed a £47m five-year outsourcing
contract with Cognizant to provide centralised data management
services for its global clinical development programmes.