Ecolab laying off 1,000 workers, 100 in Minn.

Ecolab corporate HQ sign
The St. Paul-based maker of industrial cleaning products has estimated the cuts will save about $50 million in 2009.
MPR Photo/Jeff Horwich

About 50 of the job cuts will come from corporate headquarters in downtown St. Paul and another 50 from a research center in Eagan. Most of the jobs being cut companywide were in sales and service, administration and operations and amount to about 4 percent of Ecolab's global workforce.

The St. Paul-based maker of industrial cleaning products has estimated the cuts will save about $50 million in 2009.

Spokesman Michael Monahan said the continuing recession made the layoffs necessary.

"The extraordinary nature of the economy in terms of both the recession and the raw materials really ended up requiring some extraordinary actions on our part and that is what led to the action today," Monahan said.

Monahan said the restaurant and hotel-related segments of the company's business have been hardest hit by the downturn. He said the company is still growing in health care, pest elimination, and fast food industries, as well as in Latin America.

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