New York, January 26 (FinanceEnquiry.com) - 700 jobs are being axed by Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) in the United States and Puerto Rico as the North Chicago-based health care company plans to restructure its activities in two of its manufacturing operations. It announced on Wednesday that 200 positions at its Lake County campus, most of which support its hospital and laboratory diagnostic business, will be slashed.

The layoff actions are being taken as the company has discontinued some of its “mature products” as part of a restructuring plan that it had announced in 2008. On Wednesday, Abbott posted its fourth-quarter earnings report indicating earnings of $1.62 billion, or $1.02 per share, up 12.3 percent from the same period a year ago. After the results were reported, the company informed the workers of the layoffs.

Abbott said that the layoffs had nothing to do with its October plans to split into two publicly traded companies by the end of 2012. It said that a charge of 18 cents per share in the quarter ended Dec. 31 for the job cuts had been taken. 

The remaining cuts were carried out in the stent-manufacturing business of the company in which a “few hundred” workers lost their jobs in California. About 13,000 workers are employed in suburban Chicago by Abbott. It is the area’s second-largest publicly traded enterprise by market capitalization trailing McDonald Corp.