A decision on who of the 43 employees at Arrow Pharm’s packaging department will be made redundant will be taken in the New Year.
Management met the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin yesterday to discuss the looming job losses but the final decision was put off to January pending direction from the mother company.
The meeting was attended by Arrow Pharm’s general manager, Sergio Vella, and the human resources manager, Natalin Mifsud, as well as UĦM president, Jesmond Bonello, and manufacturing section secretary, Ivan Castillo, apart from workers’representatives.
The management explained that while production volumes for next year were expected to remain unchanged, the volume of packaging was estimated to drop by half. As a result, redundancies were on the cards, although the management said this did not necessarily mean that half the 43 workers would have to go, Mr Bonello said when contacted after the meeting.
He said that once the mother company issued its instructions to the management in Malta, both sides would meet again “to see how many jobs we will manage to secure and see where other workers could be redeployed”.
The union is expected to hold a staff meeting early next week.
In 2009, Arrow Pharm became part of the Watson Group, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the US. Last year, Watson Group merged with Actavis.
Arrow Pharm started operations in Malta in 2003 with just 15 employees. The workforce grew to 250 by 2011 when it announced a €3.3 million investment to extend its premises in Ħal Far.
The news of possible redundancies comes hot on the heels of a decision by Nylon Knitting earlier this week to reduce the production week to four days come January.
Another pharmaceutical company in Malta, Actavis, will start the New Year without its research and development department following a decision to relocate the process to another country.
While some of the affected employees have found a job elsewhere, others are keeping their fingers crossed they would not start the New Year on the unemployment register.