AstraZeneca is preparing a layoff process in Spain that will affect various workers of the company, according to El Confidencial. The pharmaceutical company would have already begun to communicate the departures while reorganizing part of its structure in the country, where its workforce is approaching 2,000 employees. So far, a definitive number of affected individuals has not been publicly disclosed, nor has a collective file been announced that would allow knowing the total scope of the adjustment.
The move is particularly significant because it comes after several years of strong expansion of AstraZeneca in Spain and, particularly, in Barcelona. The multinational has turned the city into one of its main international hubs for biomedical research, data, technology, and commercial development. Its Global Hub in Barcelona already exceeds 1,600 professionals and is part of a planned investment of 1.3 billion euros by 2027, one of the largest bets made by the company in the country.
Layoffs without a definitive number of affected
The information known so far points to several departures, but does not yet allow for a specific cut in percentage terms or job positions. El Confidencial indicates that the company has initiated the process to reduce a workforce that is approaching 2,000 people. The pharmaceutical company has not yet published a specific statement detailing how many jobs will disappear, which departments will be affected, or whether the adjustment will be concentrated in Madrid, Barcelona, or different business areas.
This nuance is important because AstraZeneca is simultaneously maintaining open hiring processes in Spain. In recent days, it has published vacancies for profiles in applied artificial intelligence for oncology, clinical study management, software engineering, data, security, and commercial functions, especially in Barcelona. This points, at least with the publicly available information, to a selective reorganization of certain functions and not to a general withdrawal from the Spanish market.
Barcelona went from 500 hires to over 1,600 employees
The evolution of the Global Hub allows understanding the magnitude of the previous growth. AstraZeneca announced in 2024 that it would invest 1.3 billion euros between 2024 and 2027 and that it aimed to bring the workforce of the center to nearly 2,000 workers. At that time, the hub had just surpassed 500 jobs created since its launch in 2023.
At the end of 2025, the company had already raised to about 1,600 the number of professionals working in its new facilities in the Estel building. Only during 2024, AstraZeneca claimed to have made 540 hires in Catalonia, while the center participated in more than 385 research projects and 190 clinical trials.
In January of this year, with the appointment of Laura Colón as president of AstraZeneca Spain, the pharmaceutical company redefined the country as one of its priority markets and positioned the Barcelona center as a central piece of its international strategy. Colón simultaneously took on the responsibility of the Global Hub.
The company continues to invest in Spain
The job cuts do not coincide with a withdrawal of investment. AstraZeneca maintains that during 2025 it invested around 700 million euros in Spain and participated in 258 clinical trials with more than 15,000 patients. The company presents the country as its first European subsidiary in participation in oncology trials and one of the most relevant in the entire group in clinical research.
This same week, in addition, the Global Hub in Barcelona has hosted activities linked to an agreement between AstraZeneca and the Network Biomedical Research Center to promote projects on respiratory diseases using, among other tools, artificial intelligence and data science.
Therefore, the layoffs present a different picture from that of a company in retreat: AstraZeneca reduces positions in certain areas while continuing to incorporate professionals in others and maintains multimillion-dollar investments in research, technology, and AI.
A workforce in transformation
The combination of hiring and layoffs reflects an increasingly common phenomenon in large multinationals. The global number of employees may grow or remain relatively stable while functions considered less priority disappear and profiles linked to strategic areas such as data, artificial intelligence, clinical research, or the development of new drugs are incorporated.
In the case of AstraZeneca, the currently active job offers in Barcelona precisely show that orientation. The company is looking for specialized profiles in AI for oncological clinical development, programming, data management, technology, and scientific operations, while maintaining commercial and oncology positions in Madrid.
The real scope of the adjustment will now depend on how many layoffs the pharmaceutical company ends up executing and the areas ultimately affected. What has been confirmed so far is that AstraZeneca has started a layoff process in Spain, but not that it is slowing down its expansion in the country: the Global Hub continues to grow, new vacancies still exist, and the investment of 1.3 billion committed for Barcelona until 2027 remains in effect.