Come the new year, DuPont will cut roughly 1,700 Delaware-based jobs, company CEO Ed Breen announced Tuesday.
Come the new year, DuPont will cut roughly 1,700 Delaware-based jobs, company CEO Ed Breen announced Tuesday.
Currently, there are about 6,100 Delaware employees and 1,700 will be laid off from the company by the end of March. They were notified through a memo sent by Breen Tuesday morning.
DuPont -- which has been based in Delaware for more than 200 years -- has a long history in Salem County, as well as other areas in New Jersey.
Worldwide, DuPont plans to cut about 5,000 positions -- 10 percent of the company's workforce internationally -- in an effort to eliminate $1.6 billion from the budget by 2017, according to officials.
"As we face a pivotal time unlike any other in our company's history, we have begun a necessary journey down a new path to a stable and secure future for DuPont," Breen said in the memo.
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"I want to reinforce that these decisions were made only after careful and serious deliberation, taking into account every possible alternative, including continuing on our previous path," Breen continued.
"In the end, the board of directors and I unanimously agreed that this is the best path to a better, sustainable future for DuPont."
A $700 million cost reduction and associated restructuring plan was announced Dec. 11, which is being implemented around the world and will strongly impact Delaware, according to Breen, due to the need to restructure a cost base and reduce corporate overhead costs.
These job eliminations are planned to occur prior to the proposed $130 milion merger with DuPont and Dow Chemical Co. -- DowDuPont -- and creation of three independent companies including agriculture and chemicals, specialty products and material sciences.
DuPont also announced that Wilmington, Delaware, will be the corporate headquarters post-merge.
For more information on DuPont, visit www.dupont.com.
Brittany Wehner may be reached at bwehner@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @brittanymwehner. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
