Lake County officials are bracing for the loss of more than 1,000 jobs at the Abbott Laboratories headquarters near North Chicago. Today, one county board member called the job losses “tragic,” and the chairman said he was “upset, disturbed and alarmed.”

The job cuts in Lake County are more than half of the company’s national cuts slated for the next two years. The blow could be particularly hard in Lake County because Abbott Inc. is its second largest employer — with about 15,700 workers, according to statistics compiled by Lake County Partners. Get the full story »