BP Amoco to Lay Off 52 in Illinois

CHICAGO -- In an effort to streamline the company worldwide, BP Amoco will lay off 52 employees at its Naperville, Ill., plant beginning May 11.

Scott Dean, BP spokesman, said the layoffs are the continuation of a streamlining process "meant to simplify the company and improve performance." The layoffs follow plans the company made in October 2007 at its London headquarters.

"The staff reductions we have implemented here are in our 'aromatics and acetyls' division, which basically means these are chemical employees," Dean said. "The reductions are less than 2 percent of our area workforce, which includes Naperville, Lisle and Warrenville, where we employ a total of about 3,000 people."

Dean said the Chicago area still has "the second-largest concentration of BP employees in the country, second only to Houston," and that it remains active in a variety of other businesses, including research and development, pipelines, the refining market and more.

Dean maintained the company "was on track to reduce employees worldwide" by a total of 5,000 by mid-year.

"When we started the streamlining, we were at 97,000 employees, and by the end of last year, we had reduced that number by 3,000," he said. "At this point, we're right on our proposed target numbers."
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