Thread regarding Merck & Co. Inc. layoffs

Well, this is a bit old but here it goes anyway... Five hundred folks working for us in Lower Gwynedd got layoff notices back in November 2013. Again, I am not aware of any layoffs in 2014 as I left a few years ago but some of my buddies stayed so I have some details. Anyhow, the goal was to cut workforce by 20%, or one in five was to be let go. I also know that things will continue to get worse, as the overall market situation is not positive. So, the 20% will or should save almost three billion bucks in payroll costs, so you get the point. However, over 8K employees will be cut, and that's never a good thing. Keep in mind that these folks are Merck's assets, time and money was invested in them so the company might be saving a lot overall, but the ultimate cost will be rather large. The facility at issue here is West Point but that's beyond the objectives of this post which is to highlight how deep the cuts will be and how much affected Merck will be. Here in West Point it was just a manufacturing facility, we had some research and dev and some office functions, the folks were let go in the last week of 2013 and the first week of 2014. I am not sure about severance pay, but Merck is typically pretty good here so I'll just say 'I do not know'