Arkema Cuts Jobs, Expands Plant

To improve the productivity of its Marseille Saint-Menet facility in France, Arkema will cut about 49 jobs at the site while increasing production capacity by 10%. The company produces monomer for its Rilsan 11 polyamide product at the site. It will invest about $21 million to increase plant reliability and capacity, as well as to optimize efficiency and safety. The changes are subject to approval by the trade unions. According to Arkema, through internal opportunities and proposed early retirement packages, it should be able to redeploy every employee affected by a job loss.