The company is downsizing in an effort to boost profits.
JAY – Thirty-four salaried, International Paper employees learned Friday that their jobs were being eliminated. Some of these employees at the Androscoggin Mill opted for voluntary severance or to retire early, others didn’t.
The company is expected to offer support services to help people find new jobs.
The layoffs came a couple days after IP’s corporate office had announced the company’s plans to eliminate about 3,000 jobs, about 3.5 percent, of its worldwide work force over the next year to help improve profits.
A small portion of the jobs cut are to be achieved by attrition, but most will be through layoffs, IP’s corporate spokesperson Jenny Boardman stated in an Associated Press story last week.
Some employees at the Jay mill will lose their jobs within the next few weeks, while others will stay on until July 2004, Androscoggin Mill spokesperson Fiona McCaul said Monday.
McCaul said IP is committed to a strategy to compete more effectively in a global marketplace.
“Having a competitive cost structure is just one of the aspects of being successful in today’s environment,” McCaul said. “Across all of our businesses company-wide we are implementing programs to reduce overhead costs.”
Job cuts were pretty broadly distributed at the Jay mill, McCaul said
“We understand the impact this has on hard-working employees,” McCaul said, “and the company will provide them with outplacement assistance and severance pay.”
Some people losing their jobs hadn’t worked at the company a long time, McCaul said, while others had.
On Friday, mill leadership met with the affected employees to deliver the news.
dperry@sunjournal.com
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