Jobs Go At Havant Drug Company Pfizer

19 May 2010, 09:07 | Updated: 19 May 2010, 09:23

90 jobs are going at the Wyeth factory in Havant - which is owned by drugs giant Pfizer.

The Viagra-maker's cutting 6-thousand posts around the world - including nearly 800 in Ireland.

Pfizer boss Nat Ricciardi told staff the firm has "a tremendous global workforce and some of the best manufacturing facilities in the industry''. But the compliment did little to lift morale among the 785 employees in Ireland left clinging to any hope of getting another job during the downturn - or in enticing a prospective buyer to snap up one of the doomed factory sites.

The same despair was felt in the US where about 3,000 jobs will go when three plants close and production is cut back at another two. Two sites are to shut in Puerto Rico, with the loss of 1,800 posts. Elsewhere, 90 jobs will go in Havant, near Portsmouth, with posts also going at Illertissen, Germany.

In Ireland 510 staff based in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, and Loughbeg and Shanbally, Co Cork, face a future on the dole queue if a buyer is not found for the plants. Manufacturing in Newbridge, Co Kildare, will be dramatically reduced with 275
job cuts.