Corning Inc is a name that you may know about, or at least think that you know about the company is some ways. Before we talk about the job cuts that are being made by the company here is a look at how the company chooses to describe itself,  “Corning Incorporated (www.corning.com) is the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics. Drawing on more than 160 years of materials science and process engineering knowledge, Corning creates and makes keystone components that enable high-technology systems for consumer electronics, mobile emissions control, telecommunications and life sciences. Our products include glass substrates for LCD televisions, computer monitors and laptops; ceramic substrates and filters for mobile emission control systems; optical fiber, cable, hardware & equipment for telecommunications networks; optical biosensors for drug discovery; and other advanced optics and specialty glass solutions for a number of industries including semiconductor, aerospace, defense, astronomy, and metrology.” So as you can see the company is a lot more than just a name on some cook wear.

Sadly the company is getting ready to cut back on about 125 jobs at its Lanham facility in a move that is designed to help them to cut back on costs and make a leaner organization. Job cut of this size is enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines.  For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” Under the terms of a mass layoff action the employer must give several weeks of notice before cutting workers from the payrolls and sending them to the unemployment line.

This is not the first time that the company has turned to job cuts in order to make ends meet. For those of you who missed out on our earlier coverage of the job cuts here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “In this case the company will be letting go of about 90 of its workers in the layoff action. The workers, who are all temporary employees, are going to be cut back relatively swiftly. There is no word about what kind of severance, if any will be offered to the company’s workers as they depart the company.”

In a recent release the company chose not to talk about the job cuts, but about a recent acquisition, “Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) announced today that it has completed the previously announced acquisition of the majority of the Discovery Labware business from BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) (NYSE:BDX) for approximately $720 million in cash. The acquisition of the BD Discovery Labware business will expand Corning Life Sciences’ market presence in the multi-billion dollar global laboratory consumables market, especially in important Asian markets such as India, Korea, and Japan. Corning’s broad portfolio of laboratory products and services will be significantly enhanced by the addition of the Discovery Labware business’s four main product platforms: plastic consumable labware (liquid handling and cell culture products); biologically coated plastic consumable labware; cell culture reagents; and ADME research.”