As many employers in Maine are having difficulty finding employees to work for them, some are actually laying them off. According to WABI TV 5, Abbot Labs in Westbrook is beginning the process of laying off hundreds of full-time employees.

As a major producer of COVID-19 testing kits, and as the demand for these testing kits falls, the company says they need to layoff 400 of their employees. 100 of the employees will be laid off from the Scarborough and another 300 from the Bradley Drive, Westbrook location.

It was May of 2020 when Abbot, a company based out of Illinois, announced its plans to expand into Maine to boost production of its COVID-19 testing kits. They bought out the former location of the Olympia Sports distribution center where they had plans of employing 1,200 staff.

In a statement to WABI TV 5, Abbot Labs said, “We’ve recently seen a significant, rapid decline in COVID-19 testing demand and anticipate this trend will continue. Because of this, we are reducing our workforce that produces rapid tests in Westbrook and Scarborough. These sites will continue to play an important role in manufacturing tests for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases around the world. We’re grateful for the contributions our workers in Maine made to our country during the pandemic.”

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