Thermo Fisher is cutting a total of 218 jobs and closing three San Diego-area facilities, in the third round of layoffs for the company in California in recent months.
The company decided to discontinue sales and operations from the three facilities and consolidate its footprint because it does not expect customer demand for COVID-19 testing products to return to previous levels, a Thermo Fisher spokesperson said Wednesday in an emailed statement. The three sites to be shuttered as of June are Carroll Park Drive, Kearny Villa Road and Cornerstone.
“Thermo Fisher invested heavily in supporting the global response to COVID over the last three years. As COVID moves from pandemic to endemic, we must make adjustments to meet current market demands,” the spokesperson said. The company will still provide product support for its Accula system and associated products through the expiration date on product packaging.
Layoffs continue to plague the medtech sector, with 3M late last month announcing a further 6,000 job cuts, citing the sluggish recovery in elective medical procedure volumes. Medtronic in April said it planned to reduce its full-time global workforce as part of a broader cost-saving effort, and Amazon decided to close its Halo health wearables operation and lay off employees working in that business.
The latest cuts at Thermo Fisher come after the company notified the state in April of its intention to eliminate the positions, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification.
The Waltham, Mass.-based manufacturer of scientific instruments also cut 230 jobs at three locations in the San Diego area in February. In November, it eliminated 105 positions in San Diego, Alameda and San Mateo counties.
Thermo Fisher last month reported a 9% decline in first-quarter revenue and a 41% slide in net income from a year ago.
Goldman Sachs analysts, in a research report this week, said the company’s margins in the life sciences solutions business saw a “relatively significant step-down” due to the tapering of pandemic-related activity compared to the prior year.
This story has been updated to include a statement from Thermo Fisher.
