https://www.medtechdive.com/news/abbott-lays-off-400-workers-amid-drop-in-demand-for-covid-19-tests/603079/
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Abbott is nothing but a ruthless corporate machine who cast people to the wind without a thought. Just ask the people in Gurnee, Illinois and Scarborough, Maine if they think Abbott is one of the Top 100 places to work for along with Top 100 Most Admired companies? They run around every day promoting their company mantra, #abbottproud to the point it is absolutely nauseating. Are you really serious? Abbott Proud? I’m sorry, but Abbott gives Zero F***s about their employees. You are just a number to them.
What a difference a year makes for Abbott's COVID-19 testing business. Abbott in May 2020 announced it was expanding its Maine workforce to Westbrook to ramp up production of rapid coronavirus test kits by leasing a former sporting goods distribution center that would employ about 1,200 workers. Now, the company is laying off about 300 full-time employees in Westbrook and another 100 in Scarborough.
The Scarborough and Westbrook sites "will continue to play an important role in manufacturing tests for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases around the world," the spokesperson said.
The official declined to reveal how many employees continue to work at the Scarborough and Westbrook manufacturing sites, calling that information proprietary and competition sensitive.
Currently, Abbott forecasts about $4 billion to $4.5 billion in COVID-19 testing sales in 2021, including second-quarter sales of around $1.1 billion. The company previously forecasted about $6.5 billion to $7 billion in coronavirus test sales on its fourth-quarter earnings call in late January.
Maine wasn't the only part of Abbott's manufacturing base to feel the impact of declining test demand. Abbott recently closed its Gurnee, Illinois facility where COVID-19 tests were made, letting go about 2,000 workers.
Abbott in August 2020 told the Chicago Sun-Times that it planned to hire 2,000 people in Gurnee and that the jobs would be in place "for the foreseeable future" but did not give a more specific timeframe. At the time, the company had been awarded a $760 million contract by the Trump administration for 150 million of its rapid, point-of-care BinaxNOW antigen tests.
However, the Abbott spokesperson insisted that the plans for the Gurnee location from the start were for a temporary workforce. "We were crystal clear from the beginning," he said. "Those were always temporary workers."
A former Abbott employee, who worked at the Gurnee facility which opened at the beginning of September 2020 until the recent layoffs around Memorial Day 2021, said in an emailed statement that the company "did not have the professionalism" to notify workers in advance that they were being let go.
"We were told that we would be off for the holiday weekend and be sure to return after. Then, they closed the warehouse with zero notice," according to the former employee.
The Abbott spokesperson denied that the company terminated the employment of the temporary workers at Gurnee without notice. They added that those employees received three days of extra pay for their time, despite any financial obligation on Abbott's part.