Merck: 65 Animal Health Jobs Leaving Boxmeer, NL -- Coming To Summit, NJ Facilities?

Thanks to Pharmalot, we learned that the "other shoe" has now fallen on the Dutch animal health facilities previously operated by the legacy Schering-Plough Intervet unit.

Here is a bit -- do go read it all, at NJ.com:

. . . .The plan is expected to impact about 65 jobs at the animal health site in Boxmeer, a town in the southern Netherlands.

The Boxmeer site, which has a total of 1,700 employees, will continue to have research and manufacturing operations, Merck said.

Merck Animal Health formerly operated as Intervet. . . .

This may well be some additional fallout from the scrapping of the Merial/Intervet Sanofi-Aventis deal. Even so, it does appear to be a scaled-down sub-part of the overall 2010 New Merck Dutch Oss/Organon closure plans -- plans which resulted in "relay strikes" in front of the Oss governmental offices, by the affected legacy Organon workers -- for several months, back then. Even the Oss plan was ultimately scaled back -- due to local Dutch grassroots pressure.

It is entirely unclear whether the affected Dutch employees will uproot their families to come live in New Jersey. Should they do so, there will plainly be far less job security (and stepped-layoff protections, by a "works council" process), at law -- compared to the Dutch system (from which they would transition). In the end, my bet is that New Merck fills most of these jobs with local New Jersey people -- many likely previously laid off by legacy Schering-Plough Animal Health.

Time will tell.