'Depressing' atmosphere envelops DuPont as layoffs begin

A grim mood hung in the air Monday as DuPont Co. workers in Delaware learned whether their positions will be included in a massive round of layoffs that will eliminate 1,700 positions in the First State.

Ron Ozer, an engineer at the DuPont Experimental Station near Alapocas, lost his job Monday after nearly 25 years with the company. He described the atmosphere among DuPont workers as "depressing."

All employees at the Experimental Station had a one-on-one meeting with their supervisor to learn whether or not they will remain with the company, according to Ozer, an Arden resident. The meetings were said to have begun in the morning and continued through late afternoon.

The people who are staying aren't exactly happy, either," Ozer said. "It's not like people came out of those meetings and said, 'Yeah, I've got a job.' They are coming back to a very different organization."

Ozer said workers were not informed how many jobs were cut Monday. Despite the company's recently announced plans to cut more than  1 out of every 4 jobs in Delaware, Ozer said he was still caught off-guard.

"I can't help but say I was a bit surprised," the investigative researcher said. "I guess I thought I was safer than I was."

Some DuPont workers who received layoff notices are expected to remain with the company through the end of next month.

While Ozer described remaining DuPont workers as depressed, he said there doesn't seem to be any outrage directed at the company from employees.

"I haven't heard a lot of anger," he said. "Maybe that will come later. I hope the cuts help the company, but my fear is that it will enrich people that already have money."

Carl Erkenbrecher, who spent 33 years at DuPont before moving onto the company's performance chemicals spinoff, Chemours, said he knew several DuPont workers who lost their jobs Monday.

"I hate to say it's like a morgue, but it's sad to see colleagues losing their jobs," he said. Erkenbrecher joined other former DuPont workers for lunch at Little Vinnie's Pizza & Pasta, a restaurant near the company's Chestnut Run Plaza headquarters near Wilmington.

Rick Reynolds, a DuPont employee for 15 years before joining Chemours, described the mood among his former co-workers as "mixed."

"It's a very painful thing if you are being let go," he said.

DuPont officials declined to say how many workers received notices Monday. The cuts are expected to impact all business lines at the company's 10 Delaware facilities, all in New Castle County. In total, DuPont employs 6,100 workers in the state.

The Delaware layoffs are part of a global workforce reduction that is expected to trim DuPont’s total employment by 10 percent – or roughly 5,000 workers. The layoffs and various consolidation efforts are expected to save the company $700 million in advance of a proposed merger with Dow Chemical Co., slated for completion by the end of the year.

Under that merger, Dow and DuPont would form DowDuPont, a $130 billion company, and then separate into three independent companies: agriculture, material sciences and specialty products.

DuPont announced last week that the specialty products company will be headquartered in Delaware, although an exact location has not been identified. The material sciences business will be located in Midland, Michigan, the current home of Dow.

Delaware officials say they are working with DuPont in the hopes of landing the agriculture company, whose headquarters has yet to be determined.

DuPont’s layoffs in Delaware, where the 214-year-old chemical giant is headquartered, will reduce the company’s local workforce by 28 percent and account for about a third of its worldwide job cuts planned this year.

Monday's layoffs are the latest in a series of belt-tightening that has been ongoing since Ed Breen was named permanent chief executive officer in November. Breen replaced former CEO Ellen Kullman, who was forced out in October.

Since Breen assumed the helm at DuPont, the company has slashed 80 to 100 workers in the company's Sustainable Solutions business, including some in Wilmington. The layoffs impacted positions throughout the unit, from production managers to administrative assistants. Breen also eliminated the positions of an unknown number of corporate attorneys, who were said to have been with the company for a long time.

Even contractors have not been immune from the cuts. Breen halted the company's "One DuPont" IT project, severing agreements with 300 contract workers. The three-year project was expected to upgrade the company's IT infrastructure.

In addition to DuPont workers, several hundred employees of contractors that provide maintenance, property management and other services in Delaware also were bracing for job cuts on Monday.

Some DuPont workers got their pink slips before Christmas as the company prepared to merge its global and scientific engineering units. Pioneer, the Iowa-based hybrid seed unit, is slated to completely exit the state by March.

Erkenbrecher said he knows a Delaware-based Pioneer employee whose job will be relocated to Iowa.

"The good news is he gets to keep his job, but he has four months to decide if he wants to go to Iowa," he said.

DuPont's layoffs are expected to take a toll on local restaurants, grocery stores, retailers and home sales as families impacted by the job cuts curtail spending or leave the area entirely.

Businesses surrounding Chestnut Run Plaza, where about 3,000 people worked as of early 2015, said they expected to feel the brunt of a smaller DuPont.

Tyler Spencer, a worker at Mailae Deli, a restaurant near Chestnut Run Plaza, said he already has noticed that lunch crowds have thinned out since DuPont initiated budget cuts.

"It's no secret that DuPont's layoffs will kill a lot of businesses around here," he said. "It's bad news."

Spencer said the restaurant is expecting further DuPont layoffs will impact the bottom line. At noon, two tables in the restaurant were occupied, but both groups said they were not DuPont workers.

"We've already felt a bit of a hurt," he said. "We are not expecting the worst, but definitely expecting a bit of a loss."

Vinnie's Pizza owner Beverly DeCarlo said she knows DuPont workers who joined the company in 2015 only to be laid off a few months later.

"My heart is broken for the DuPont workers," she said. "Some of them had uncles and grandfathers who worked there."

DeCarlo said she hasn't felt the impact of DuPont layoffs just yet because of the holidays, but is bracing for the potential loss of lunch revenue.

"We are hoping it doesn't have an impact," she said. "But obviously, it is going to."

Jeff O'Dell, a DuPont employee for 30 years, who joined Erckenbrecher and Reynolds at Chemours, said he was waiting to hear the fates of his former colleagues.

"It's just quiet," he said.

DuPont officials said the company would provide employees targeted for layoffs with detailed information about collecting unemployment and assistance with job training.

"I had mixed feelings going into today," Ozer said. "I feel like leaving now with the severance package is a better option because a year from now there will be additional cuts when we merge with Dow and the severance package won't be as good."

The Experimental Station, which previously employed 2,500 workers, and the Stine Haskell Research Center, which had 600 employees, also are expected to be hard hit by layoffs.

Built in 1903, the 150-acre Experimental Station was the birthplace of DuPont’s most profitable products, including Nylon; Kevlar; Tyvek; and the world’s first synthetic rubber, neoprene.

Published reports last week indicated at least 80 percent of DuPont’s Central Research and Development division at the Experimental Station are slated to lose their jobs, an estimate strongly refuted by a company spokesman as a “gross exaggeration.”

Meanwhile, a $35 million soybean research center DuPont began building last year at Stine Haskell has been halted, according to sources familiar with the project. The fate of the incomplete facility is not immediately clear.

Seven other DuPont locations also are slated to be impacted by the job cuts, including the DuPont Country Club in Rockland, the Hotel du Pont in downtown Wilmington, Performance Polymers Kalrez-Tralee Park in Ogletown, the Pencader Plant near Newark, DuPont Capital in Talleyville and DuPont Aviation near New Castle.

Officials with the state Labor Department said last week the agency planned to send a rapid response team to DuPont’s Delaware facilities this month to provide workers with information about collecting unemployment and help with job training and certification.

In an official filing with the state, DuPont indicated the actual dates workers will leave the company will begin Feb. 29 and continue through March 31. Other positions will be eliminated throughout 2016.

Contact Jeff Mordock at (302) 324-2786, on Twitter @JeffMordockTNJ or jmordock@delawareonline.com.

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.