Health giant announces mass layoffs across California
One of the country’s biggest health care giants is slashing nearly 150 jobs across California, leaving workers from San Diego to Oakland facing the unemployment line.
Kaiser Permanente confirmed to The California Post it will eliminate 147 non-frontline positions held by employees across the state.
Most of the cuts are concentrated in Southern California, with dozens of workers set to lose their jobs at offices across the region. A handful of positions are also being eliminated in Northern California.
The jobs do not involve “direct patient care” and instead are tied to business and administrative operations, according to Kaiser.
“Kaiser Permanente continually evaluates how we organize our work and deploy resources to help ensure high-quality care remains affordable and accessible for our members and patients.”
“We recently notified 147 employees in a number of business and administrative functions that their positions will be eliminated,” it added.
The biggest hit is in San Diego, where 72 administrative workers are set to lose their jobs, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Another 22 employees will be cut in Pleasanton and 12 in Oakland, while 20 positions are being eliminated in Pasadena.
The remaining cuts are spread across Sacramento, Folsom, Los Angeles, Corona and Irvine.
The layoffs are listed as permanent, with the terminations taking effect Nov. 20.
Kaiser said it will offer help to workers affected by the cuts.
“We are supporting affected employees as they explore other opportunities within Kaiser Permanente and, where appropriate, providing severance, career support, and outplacement services,” the statement read.
“These changes will not affect the quality of care or service we provide to our members and patients.”
Kaiser employs more than 183,000 people in California and describes itself as the largest private employer in the state, according to the organization’s website.
The latest cuts come after Kaiser eliminated 200 positions at more than a dozen hospitals and clinics across California last year.
Those cuts were part of an effort to “rebalance resources” and respond to rising costs and patient volumes, the Chronicle reported.
