GIV lays off workers

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Global economic troubles have hit home in Bastian as a dozen employees of General Injectables and Vaccines lost their jobs last week.
Bland County Administrator Jonathan Sweet said that he was informed last week that 12 of the company’s approximately 200 employees had been laid off.
“I most certainly was surprised,” Sweet said.
The layoffs stretched across multiple divisions and included top management such as Tinker Short, who served as GIV’s vice president and general manager.
GIV, which supplies more than 18,000 medical products, is a subsidiary of Henry Schein, a New York-based company that distributes health care products internationally.
Charlie Herbert, GIV’s human resources manager, said he was unable to comment and referred all questions about the layoffs to Henry Schein’s corporate offices.
In an e-mail message sent Tuesday afternoon, Susan Vassallo, Henry Schein’s vice president of corporate communications, called the cuts “difficult, but necessary.”
Vassallo said that Henry Schein overall recently eliminated approximately 300 jobs companywide.
According to Henry Schein’s latest earnings release for the third quarter, the company had net sales of $1.7 billion during the three-month time period – up 9.6 percent from the same quarter in 2007.
However, the release noted that the medical group sales declined by 4.1 percent from 2007’s third quarter results.
Medical group sales also were down 8.3 percent in the second quarter when compared to the previous year’s data.
The third quarter results release mentions that Henry Schein is seeking to reduce “sales of certain lower-margin pharmaceutical products.”
While Sweet said he was disappointed to hear about the layoffs, he stressed that there has been no indication that GIV is in danger of closing or being relocated.
He added that the county government has to have confidence that the company is doing what’s right for its long-term future, which in turn will benefit local workers.
“We understand that businesses need to do what they need to do,” Sweet said. “Business decisions are tough, but we trust that when companies make these types of decisions it’s for the best of the entire company.”
The county administrator said Bland County can’t expect to be immune to the struggles caused by the darkening international financial picture.
“We have a lot of businesses and industries in the county that reach out to the global market,” he said.
On the other hand, Sweet emphasized that the county has a diversified work force that can weather tough economic times.
“I’m optimistic that Bland County will remain a vibrant local economy,” he said.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .