Walgreens layoffs begin
The first round of official layoffs for Walgreens employees came this month. All of the 27 employees involved in this round volunteered to leave early, said Coconino County Career Center Director Carol Curtis. Another 200 employees are slated to be laid off in February.
In all, 345 employees will lose their jobs when the Flagstaff distribution center closes in late spring.
“The task will be matching the skills sets with the Walgreens folks, or helping them increase their skills to become employable in our labor market, or other areas,” Curtis said.
The closure is one of the largest in the history of Flagstaff. One economist from the Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona estimated that the closure of a similar-sized company in Phoenix would be equal to about 28,000 people losing their jobs.
Filed under: General Problems
“Purina will get around $4,000 per person in wage reimbursements from the Career Center to offset the cost of training the new workers, Curtis said.”
I hope Purina is required to keep their new employees for at least a year — sometimes when these deals are done, the company takes the money, and three months later, lays off the new people.
Instead of giving that $4K to Purina, they should give it to the new employees as a bonus after one year of employment.