3M announces 6,000 job cuts across global operations

The company has a premises in Dublin and Athlone

3M manufactures healthcare equipment such as facemasks and owns brands like Post-It Photographer: Angus Mordant/Bloomberg

American conglomerate 3M has announced plans to cut 6,000 jobs from its global workforce but it is not yet known if any Irish jobs will be lost.

3M, which manufactures healthcare equipment such as facemasks and owns brands like Post-It, has a premises in Dublin and a manufacturing facility in Athlone. In 2021, the company employed 500 people with plans to recruit 100 more as it planned to open the 3M Digital Science Community in Dublin.

On Tuesday, the company announced the job cuts as it adjusts to slumping demand in several key markets.

The reductions, part of a wider restructuring of the manufacturer, are expected to trim annual costs by as much as $900m (€818.29m) 3M said in a statement reporting first-quarter earnings. The company has now announced 8,500 total job cuts this year, which would equate to about a 9% decline in its global workforce.

These actions “will reduce costs at the corporate centre, further simplify and strengthen our supply chain structure, and streamline our go-to-market business models, which will improve margins and cash flow,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Roman said in the statement.

The results highlight how the maker of Post-it notes, respirators and smartphone display materials is struggling to shake off weak demand for consumer goods, electronics and more of its roughly 60,000 products. Sales of virus-filtering respirators coming off pandemic-fueled highs and China’s choppy economic reopening has also weighed on 3M’s results.

The conglomerate’s operational struggles have added to investor fears over what could be billions of dollars in potential liabilities stemming from allegedly faulty earplugs supplied to US combat troops and contamination from so-called forever chemicals, which 3M plans to stop producing by the end of 2025.

3M in January announced plans to cut 2,500 manufacturing jobs to respond to the soft demand environment, the latest in a series of restructuring moves announced since Roman was named CEO in 2018.

The restructuring actions announced this year will result in pretax charges of as much as $900 million, the company said.

Additional reporting Bloomberg