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Baxter International Planning Major Lay-off Action

640px-Baxter.svgBaxter International is considering laying off 5 percent of their non-manufacturing payroll, about 1,400 jobs, due to a sharp decline in third-quarter profits. The Deerfield-based maker of hospital products and renal-related goods blames the profit slump on the costs of spinning-off its pharmaceutical division.

The company has offices all over the world, and it is expected that the job cuts will effect employees proportionately world-wide, with no one office taking more job cuts than any other. If this is the case, then of the 4,800 Baxter employees working in northern Illinois, then about 240 jobs will be lost. About two-thirds of the cuts will take place outside the US. Also, some 30 percent of the lost jobs will be job openings that will simply not be filled, while the other 70 percent will be actual employee firings. It is expected that the cuts will save Baxter as much as $130 million a year.

The third-quarter stats are as follows: the company posted a profit of $1 million, which translates to zero cents per share. In contrast, the 3Q net income was $468 million, or 86 cents per share, in 2014.

The cost of spinning of its drug operations to Baxalta on July 1st had a negative impact on net income, costing the company $223 million in special items, or 41 cents per share.

After the announcement shares of Baxter rose by about 2 percent to $36.64 per share.