Merck is a name that many people know, but when it comes down to it the company has a lot of arms, and some of them sport different names. Take for example Merck KGaA, for those of you who are not familiar with that arm of the company here is a look at how they have chosen to describe themselves, “The Darmstadt site is the headquarters of the Merck Group. Merck KGaA is the umbrella for the operating activities of the Merck group. Around 30% of the company’s total capital is publicly traded, while the Merck family owns an interest of about 70% via the general partner E. Merck KG. This site is also where numerous departments are based, whose employees provide support to the company’s subsidiaries or provide key services, in areas such as human resources, legal affairs and patents, technical and IT matters, purchasing and logistics, marketing and sales, as well as accounting and controlling.”

Sadly the company is getting ready to cut back on workers in Germany.  The company put out a release outlining some of the changes that they plan to make to the staffing, “Merck announced today that it has signed an agreement with employee representatives on an efficiency plan for the company’s operations in Germany. The efficiency measures are part of the company’s “Fit for 2018″ business transformation program spanning all businesses and regions in order to secure Merck’s long-term competitiveness. Merck plans to eliminate around 1,100 of the 10,900 positions in Germany by the end of 2015. The positions will be reduced in a socially acceptable manner, mainly through voluntary-resignation and early retirement programs across all divisions and functions. As part of the agreement concerning the efficiency measures associated with the “Fit for 2018″ program, Merck will refrain from forced redundancies until the end of 2017, with the exception of possible site closures and transfers that are still being assessed.”

As you can see the layoffs are set to be fairly extensive in the next couple of years, but there are some cuts coming in the near future as well, which the company discussed in detail, at least in terms of positions to be cut, “The efficiency measures for Germany comprise more than 100 individual initiatives spanning all businesses and functions. Among others, several support functions across the divisions, such as logistics, will be reorganized….The production of industrial salts in Lehrte, Germany, as well as the filling operations in Hohenbrunn, Germany, will be discontinued. A total of approximately 140 employees are working at the two sites. In the months ahead, the Works Council and Merck will consider various scenarios for the two sites.” As you can see the cuts will even be fairly serious in the next couple of weeks.

As you may have imagined, these are not the first cuts made by the pharmaceutical giant. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage of cuts made by the company here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in not time in all, “New Jersey-based drug maker Merck & Co., which previously announced major job cuts, said Thursday it is shutting down eight manufacturing plants and eight research sites, including one in Cambridge.

The closures are part of a major restructuring by Merck & Co. following its acquisition of Schering-Plough Corp. last November.  At the time the deal was made, the company said it would slash15 percent of the combined workforce – or about 16,000 jobs.”