Medtronic
(NYSE: MDT)
employees recently reported a new round of layoffs at the world’s largest medical device company.
Update: Medtronic has confirmed our reporting.
A Medtronic spokesperson declined to confirm the latest cuts or provide more information, saying only that “Medtronic continually evaluates its operations and aligns our resources with our highest strategic priorities.”
One laid-off employee said the cuts span the entire organization, while another said Medtronic planned to outsource their job. Employees hoping to land new roles shared news of their own layoffs from Medtronic groups including Endoscopy, Structural Heart, and Ear, Nose and Throat.
Medtronic is also laying off 35 employees in Israel, or about 3% of the company’s employees there, according to Israeli tech news website CTech. Most of those cuts are reportedly to Mazor Robotics, which Medtronic purchased for $1.7 billion in 2018. Medtronic declined to deny or confirm that report.
The cuts follow news of Medtronic’s plan to eliminate 44 jobs in California. Those layoffs appear to be related to Medtronic’s decision to exit the ventilator market.
In January, Medtronic Chair and CEO Geoff Martha announced plans to close at least five manufacturing sites and consolidate eight distribution centers to two “super distribution centers.”
It’s hard to tell how deep Medtronic has cut its workforce in recent years through reorganizations or last year’s voluntary early retirement program.
Related: The 10 largest medtech employers of 2023 – and what their employees really think
Medtronic does not publicly share details of job cuts except what is required by state laws covering mass layoffs.
The company approximates its global headcount as more than 95,000 in recent annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s more than any other company on Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s Medtech Big 100, which ranks the world’s largest medical device companies by revenue.
In disclosures of CEO compensation compared to pay for its median employee, Medtronic said it had:
- 101,867 employees in February 2022,
- 97,848 in January 2021,
- 96,204 in January 2020,
- 92,559 in January 2019,
- and 89,376 in January 2018.
Medtronic is scheduled to announce its fourth-quarter and full-year financial and operating results for fiscal 2024 on May 23.
Wall Street analysts are expecting full-year profits of $5.20 per share on $32.24 billion in revenue, compared to fiscal 2023 EPS of $5.29 and total sales of $31.23 billion.
Medtronic’s revenue and profits dropped from 2022 to 2023, leading to a year-over-year decrease in pay for Martha and EVP and CFO Karen Parkhill. Medtronic also modified its Medtronic Incentive Plan (MIP) after senior executives missed financial performance targets and received no MIP bonuses.
This March, the Medtronic board authorized spending $5 billion on future stock buybacks, following $6 billion worth of share repurchases authorized in 2019.
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