DuPont to cut 1700 jobs from US headquarters

Now, as it prepares for the future, it looks like many Dupont employees in DE should fear losing their jobs.

The chemical company DuPont will cut a quarter of its positions in DE in an attempt to achieve $700 million in cost savings amid a merger with Dow Chemical, the company’s CEO Edward Breen said in a note to employees on Tuesday.

That’s roughly 10% of the company’s workforce.

Since the 1980s, DE residents have become accustomed to closings, consolidations and spinoffs by DuPont, formerly the state’s dominant private-sector employer.

The company’s new suburban headquarters, its labs in Newark, Del., and the DuPont Experimental Station outside Wilmington, Del., will remain open even with fewer staff, but projects such as a planned $35 million crop-seed laboratory in Newark, N.J., have been scrapped.

That specialty products company, which would combine DuPont’s nutrition and health, industrial biosciences, safety and protection, and electronics and communications segments with Dow’s electronic materials business, will be based in Delaware.

Still, Delaware’s governor Jack Markell called the cuts “deeply disappointing”. DuPont has a larger agricultural unit, and officials have yet to say where the headquarters of the merged ag business would be. In December 2008, DuPont announced 2,500 job cuts, followed by 2,000 more in May 2009 and 1,500 more in October 2012.

Dow and DuPont expect their combination will cut annual expenses by $3 billion.

DE state law required DuPont to file a notice of the layoff plans by December 31, forcing the company to outline it publicly before all affected individual employees were told the news, according to Mr. Breen. In his statement, he said specialty products includes major DuPont brands like Tyvex and Kevlar, adding the state would “continue to urge DuPont and Dow to see the value of locating other businesses here in DE, where they have grown and succeeded in the past”.

I recognize this is a lot of change in a short time and in the New Year you will hear much more from me personally and from the leadership team regarding our strategic direction.

Reports from Dow Jones Newswires were used in this story.