Philadelphia-based agricultural sciences company FMC Corp. will lay off 41 employees at its Mobile County site at the end of October, according to a WARN notice issued Tuesday.
The layoffs are set to begin Oct. 31.
What FMC Does in Axis
FMC Corp. was founded in Los Gatos, California, in 1883. The company purchased its Axis manufacturing center in 2017, and the site now produces agricultural chemicals for insect control and crop protection, according to the company’s website.
Axis sits in north Mobile County along the Mobile River industrial corridor, a stretch of chemical, paper and marine facilities that anchors a substantial share of the county’s manufacturing employment.
The Financial Backdrop
The WARN notice follows reports of continually falling revenue at FMC — pressure significant enough that board members have been weighing a sale of the company, according to financial advisory site The Motley Fool.
The agricultural chemicals sector broadly has faced a difficult stretch, with elevated channel inventories and soft crop prices squeezing demand for crop protection products across several product lines.
What a WARN Notice Means
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers of a certain size to provide advance notice of mass layoffs or plant closings. In Alabama, those notices are filed with the state and made public, which is why layoffs frequently become public knowledge months before the affected workers’ final day.
Efforts to reach FMC representatives for comment were not immediately successful.