Ecolab cuts 70 jobs in St. Paul and Eagan
Mar 31, 2012 (Menafn - Pioneer Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Ecolab gave pink slips to 70 employees in St. Paul and Eagan this week as it reshapes its information technology operations in the wake of a large merger.
Employees were notified Thursday, said Roman Blahoski, an Ecolab spokesman.
The cuts represent 3 percent of the overall Twin Cities workforce and 20 percent of the Twin Cities information technology workforce at corporate headquarters in St. Paul and at an Eagan campus. A small number of Twin Cities employees outside of IT also were laid off this week, Blahoski said.
In January, the company announced that a restructuring tied to its 8.3 billion acquisition of Illinois based Nalco Holding Co. would result in 500 job cuts from its workforce of 39,000 worldwide. The latest information technology cuts are part of that number.
Ecolab is consolidating a number of software and hardware configurations into a smaller number, Blahoski said. As one merged company, the same number of information technology jobs that once supported two large organizations isn't required. It's called "scale advantage," said Mike Monahan, Ecolab's senior vice president of external relations.
"We're able to operate the larger business on a smaller combined base," Monahan said. Secondly, Ecolab is trying to refocus IT roles and functions to make them more productive and efficient.
The company has about 2,400 employees altogether in the Twin Cities.
Ecolab also cut 40 other people in other locations this week.
This year, the
company expects 75 million in cost savings related to the merger and ongoing costs savings of 250 million a year.
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