And maybe we’ll stick around a little longer.

The drugmaker is launching a $6.1 million program to raise manufacturing skills at its St. Laurent plant and fight off low-cost competition from Latin America and Asia. And Quebec is kicking in $1.6 million in the form of an economic incentive grant.

“Life sciences is a critical growth sector for Quebec, along with aerospace and some other manufacturing industries,” says employment minister Sam Hamad. “The real challenge ahead is to keep jobs in Quebec despite the intense pressures of globalization.”

The government is ready to help boost plant productivity with grants to stem the loss of manufacturing jobs - 25,000 vanished in the past year. “The U.S. and Europe face a similar crisis and are reacting the same way. In Quebec, we must specialize and excel to stay alive.”

Germain Morin, Wyeth’s vp of operations, says being part of a multinational does not protect any one plant. “Look what happened to GM Boisbriand. … We must fight for survival against the parent’s own plants in low-cost areas such as Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico, Ireland, India and China as well as outside competitors.”

Workers in Montreal average $50,000 a year, but a Chinese worker doing the same job gets $5,000, he says. “The new program will enable our people to learn new practices and systems and go on supplying competitive products to Wyeth’s global sales network. That will spur new investment and growth.”

Quebec’s grant is an investment in people, he said. The province and the borough of St. Laurent will gain from job preservation and stable tax revenues. But without the program, “hundreds of jobs could be outsourced abroad,” Hamad worries.

Wyeth’s manufacturing unit in Canada has 1,300 employees, including 200 in research doing preclinical drug testing. “They play with molecules,” says Morin.

To justify its request for the handout, Morin notes that Wyeth contributed $215 million last year to the Quebec economy. Its Montreal plant manufactures, packages and distributes various drugs. “We’ve got a tremendous talent pool in Montreal with four universities and many colleges,” he says, “but you need world-class expertise to keep ahead.”

Source: The Montreal Gazette[tags]Canada, Economic Incentive Grants, Wyeth[/tags]