Link to the CNN article here
Pfizer to cut 10,000 jobs, shut 5 plants
I understand that the progressive community really doesn't like big Pharma that much. Indeed, there's little reason to like them. But this is some extremely bad news for Michigan's economy. First foundering auto sales began crippling Detroit, and now the second largest employer in the Ann Arbor area is closing its gates and packing it in, leaving some 2,400 people, many of them skilled professionals, without jobs.
[Pfizer] said it plans to close three research sites in Michigan, including two facilities in Ann Arbor, and one in Kalamazoo. The company also plans to close manufacturing sites in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Omaha, Neb.
Now, while I can't say I'm all that surprised at Pfizer's troubles, it is extremely troubling news for Michigan. I am in no way an expert, and I don't really have any solid sources for this. But having worked in the "Life Sciences Corridor" for the past 5+ years, I can say with some certainty that Pfizer was pretty helpful to academic science - namely it enabled some of our core facilities to function.
I speak of things like mass spec machines and x-ray generators. The kind of equipment that was bought with tobacco money, but requires continuous influxes of cash to keep operational.
Pfizer was such an influx of cash.
What will happen to science in Michigan without the ability to overcharge big Pharma for services? Science was supposed to be the new automotive for our economy. A very large segment of our tobacco settlement money went to improving academic infrastructure at universities and paying for open access facilities at national labs (which could subsequently be rented to Pfizer, including labor to pay some of our salaries).
In the overall picture, this is a bad thing. Pfizer was the second largest employer in Ann Arbor, right after the University of Michigan. Either the skilled personnel keep their jobs and leave Michigan, or they stay and try to find work in the already glutted academic world.
First our automotive industry suffered, being unable to keep up with foreign competitors. Now the Big Pharma jobs are gone, and with it a source of income for our public universities. Does Governor Granholm have a plan to keep those scientists here and maintain our midwest science corridor? Perhaps the more pertinent question, though, is can we afford to?
According to economists, Michigan's budget is $3 billion short of the revenue needed to cover basic services this year and next. Granholm said the decline in revenue to the state budget is the result of tax cuts signed over the last seven years and an auto industry in full scale crisis.
If things don't start looking up, Michigan's new motto is going to become
"Welcome to Michigan. At least we still have some cherries"