IntriCon Corp. of Arden Hills, which makes wireless monitoring devices for medical products, hearing aids and government agencies, said Thursday it is cutting its 500-employee worldwide workforce by 35 people as part of a reorganization.

The company said it hopes to reduce costs by $3 million a year. As part of that effort, it will shift some business from Maine to Minnesota, while other work will be transferred from Singapore to Indonesia. The restructuring is expected to result in charges of $200,000 to $250,000 for the rest of the fiscal year.

Scott Longval, the chief financial officer, said in an interview that the company has about 215 employees in the Twin Cities. Roughly a third of the layoffs would be in the Twin Cities operations, he said.

IntriCon makes a wireless glucose monitor for Medtronic, which is IntriCon's largest customer and accounts for about 25 percent of its revenue, Longval said. IntriCon also manufactures a hearing aid for UnitedHealthcare. IntriCon was founded in 1977, and went public in 1993.

"As a company, we needed to better align our cost structure with current lower revenue levels — a trend that is continuing in the second quarter," Mark Gorder, president and chief executive of IntriCon, said in a statement.

"These initiatives allow us to consolidate operations, reduce our global manufacturing footprint, lower our costs and provide greater focus on our strategic plan: growing the value hearing health and medical biotelemetry opportunities that hold the greatest potential to drive shareholder value.

"Change of this nature is hard, but necessary,'' Gorder said. "By right-sizing our organization, and better leveraging our existing resources, we'll be able to aggressively drive our two largest growth opportunities — which we expect will strengthen in the second half of the year."

Last year the company earned $709,000 on revenue of $63.9 million.

IntriCon's revenue peaked in 2007 at $69 million. The recession took a big bite out of sales, which declined to a low of $51.7 million in 2009. Revenue has yet to recover to its prerecession peak. IntriCon's workforce also peaked in 2007 at 612 employees.

The company ranked No. 71 on the annual Star Tribune 100 ranking of Minnesota's largest public companies.

IntriCon shares closed Thursday at $3.39, up a penny.

Steve Alexander • 612-673-4553