The Newry headquartered pharmaceutical firm, Norbrook, which manufactures a portfolio of animal health products, plans to cut 180 jobs.
The company, which is family owned, blamed ” significant changes in its operating environment” for the redundancies.
According to Norbrook this included “global economic challenges and increased competition”.
The Newry company, which was established in 1969, sells its product in more than 100 countries worldwide.
It has told its workforce – it employs in the region of 1,600 people in Newry – that it plans to alter its current production schedules in line with “revised sales forecasts” which will result in 180 job losses.
In a statement Norbrook outlined that while it recognised this was “a difficult time for employees, the decision has been taken after exhausting other options and to best position the company to return to growth as the market stabilises”.
It added that it was currently exploring ways to “minimise the need for compulsory redundancies, which will include offering voluntary redundancy packages, and we will enter into a period of consultation with our employees”.
According to Liam Nagle, chair and chief executive of Norbrook, the company had previously invested £10 million to increase “headcount that would support increased manufacturing and product release”.
The Norbrook chair said that the decision to now reduce staff numbers was taken to “best position the company for the future” and to return to growth when the market stablises.
Nagle added:
“In the past year, a challenging global economic environment, together with increased competition in the animal health sector, has impacted on our ability to achieve anticipated sales growth.
“Going forward, the animal health sector is still a significant market globally and we have demonstrated our ability to manufacture, test and release products in full year 23. We therefore have many reasons to be confident about future growth.”
Latest financial results published by the company, for the year ending July 2022, showed a 0.4% year-on-year increase in turnover to £232 million and a pre-tax profits result of £21.3 million.
