Word of several hundred layoffs coming at the McNeil consumer health care unit of Johnson & Johnson in Ft. Washington, Pa. has Montgomery County officials ready to extend a helping hand to those losing their jobs.

KYW’s Brad Segall reports that Jerry Birkelbach, executive director of the Montgomery County Workforce Investment Board, says they will be working in conjunction with the Commonwealth and the company to make the transition as easy as possible.

Birkelbach says they will also work with other pharmaceutical companies in the area to see if they have any job openings and doing whatever they can do to help with the job search:

“It is really a pretty complete menu of services –  from helping with résumé writing, with job interviewing, all of those kinds of things geared towards getting people back to work as soon as possible.”

The Ft. Washington unit has been shut down since April because of multiple recalls of Tylenol and some children’s medications. Three hundred people are getting pink-slipped.

The company plans a major plant upgrade, but they don’t expect to reopen until the middle of next year.