HIGH street chemists Alliance Boots is to cut about 200 UK pharmaceutical wholesaling jobs as part of its move to slash the division’s global workforce by ten per cent.

The beauty and healthcare group said 1,500 jobs would be lost during the next 12 months. The firm cut a quarter of these posts by the end of its financial year on March 31. Affected UK staff have already left the pharmaceutical wholesale arm, which has experienced “the most difficult market conditions we have seen”, the company said. The division employs about 4,500 staff in the UK.

FIGHTING FIT... Company support organisation Business Link has launched a programme of free events designed to provide practical help to North-East businesses during the recession. The next Keep Your Business Fighting Fit workshops are at Beamish Hall, near Stanley, County Durham, from 9.30am to 12.30pm, on June 2, and at Sedgefield Racecourse, from 1.30pm to 4.30pm, on June 16.

Both will look at harnessing talent and optimising staff performance during a recession.

...FEELING SICK: A “worrying trend” of growing long-term sickness among the UK workforce was highlighted in a report yesterday. Despite overall sickness figures going down, more than a third of employers reported an increase of long-term sick leave from 2007 to 2008, and nearly half were dissatisfied with the sick-note system.

The 2009 Sickness Absence Survey, carried out by the manufacturer’s organisation EEF and a UK insurance provider Unum, showed 36 per cent of employers claimed a rise in sickness absence of more than a month.