Medtronic to trim 3% of workforce in slow-growth areas

Medtronic joins other healthcare vendors in cutting workforce. Source: e-Commerce Times

Medtronic reported Tuesday that it will cut 1,100 jobs globally, which constitutes 3 percent of its total workforce of approximately 39,500 employees.

The layoff is the largest initiated by the medical technology company in at least five years.

More than a third of the jobs shed over the course of the fiscal year will come from the company’s Minnesota operations, which employ about 8,000 people.

Medtronic described its decision as "a realignment,” noting that the company will likely hire more workers in sectors that are growing this year than the number being discharged.

The company did not specify which operations would be affected by the cuts, but some are speculating that its $4.9 billion cardiac rhythm business, based in Mounds View, Minn., will likely feel the brunt of the job cuts, according to the Star Tribune.

Medtronic halted sales of thin wires that connect the heart to implanted defibrillators after they were linked to five deaths in October 2007. The $5.6 billion market for implanted defibrillators, devices used to shock the heart into normal rhythm, shrank after Medtronic and competitors recalled faulty products in 2005, according to Bloomberg.