BRISTOL, Tenn. – GlaxoSmithKline will rehire 40 to 50 employees at its Industrial Drive medicine-making plant and put off plans to completely close it at the end of this month, company officials said Wednesday.
“We anticipate that a total of 40 to 50 people will be added, as quickly as we can do so,” Robert Kelton, a spokesman at GlaxoSmithKline’s regional office in North Carolina.
Jeffrey Gramm, site director at GSK’s Bristol plant, said the facility has already re-hired 30 employees, with the remaining 10 to 20 coming on through February. He suggested the added employees would help GSK meet a growing demand in its U.S. market for antibiotic products – and said they’d be needed for an “indefinite, indeterminate” period.
Gramm declined to comment further on operations at the area building and why the company unexpectedly altered plans to close the facility.
In a later E-mail reply Wednesday afternoon, Kelton wrote that the new work at Bristol’s plant “is likely to last at least one year.”
The re-hirings represent a sudden, dramatic change for the GSK Bristol plant, which was scheduled to totally end operations in a few weeks.
In September 2006, GlaxoSmithKline announced it would close the facility, which had more than 200 employees during peak production. Since then, GSK has
been gradually phasing it out and laying off local employees.
Based in England, GlaxoSmithKline makes hundreds of prescription and consumer products, ranging from flu vaccines to anti-depressant medication to over-the-counter items like Geritol vitamins, Breathe Right strips and Alli weight-loss pills.
Bristol Deputy City Manager Mike Sparks said GSK’s decision to keep the plant open was an encouraging development for the company, employees and city.
“It’s very good news for all of us,” Sparks said. “We’re particularly pleased because the plant was just days away from closing altogether.”
rbrown@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2512
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