DuPont to cut 3,500 jobs

DOVER, Del. - The chemical giant DuPont Co. plans to eliminate 3,500 jobs, or about 6 percent of its global work force, by the end of this year as part of previously announced plans to cut costs.

The Wilmington-based company said Monday it will eliminate about 3,000 positions, roughly two-thirds of them in the United States and Canada, and expects to cut another 500 positions through attrition.

In addition to trimming its own work force, the company will eliminate 450 contractor positions, most of them in the United States.

The cuts do not include the roughly 18,000 employees of DuPont’s INVISTA textiles subsidiary, which is being sold to Koch Industries in a deal scheduled to close by the end of this month. Excluding that division, DuPont employs about 59,000 people worldwide.

DuPont employees were informed of the job cuts Monday morning in an e-mail from chairman and CEO Charles O. Holliday Jr.

Spokesman Clif Webb said the cuts will be spread across the company’s business units and include all levels of the work force, including management.

"We have to reduce our costs, and we have to refocus and rebalance our assets," he said.

In December, DuPont announced that it would trim $900 million in costs over the next two years by cutting jobs, streamlining product lines and making other changes.

"These are difficult but necessary decisions as we align our resources with market needs and adjust the size of our infrastructure following the anticipated separation of INVISTA," Holliday said Monday in a news release. "These actions will help assure the near- and long-term competitiveness of our businesses worldwide as well as progress toward our mission of sustainable growth."

To meet its overall cost-cutting goal, DuPont will reduce fixed costs by $700 million. The job cuts are expected to create about $325 million in annualized savings, and the company expects about $375 million in fixed-cost reductions by 2005 by reducing spending in areas such as contract services, supplies, telecommunications and information technology. Those savings represent about 6 percent of the company’s annual spending on supplies and services.

In addition to the fixed-cost reductions, DuPont expects to save about $200 million through such things as eliminating some of the 508,000 product variations spread among its 78,000 product lines to free up capacity for higher-value products and trimming raw material and energy costs.

DuPont expects to take a one-time second-quarter charge of 17 cents to 19 cents per share as a result of the restructuring, largely for severance costs. The company will decide the exact amount of restructuring charges during the second quarter.

DuPont will issue its next earnings report April 27.

DuPont, founded in 1802, operates in more than 70 countries. The company offers a wide range of products and services in the areas of agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety, construction and transportation.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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