CVS Health is beginning to roll out layoffs in a number of states, letting go more than 1,200 employees in Rhode Island and Connecticut alone.
The workforce reductions — part of a company-wide restructuring — were disclosed late last week in a series of notices filed with state labor departments. They are effective beginning October 21.
CVS announced earlier this month it planned to fire 5,000 of its 300,000 workers in the U.S. to cut expenses, as the healthcare giant faces cost pressures from integrating recent multi-billion dollar deals.
Now, new details on the layoffs are emerging thanks to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act. Under WARN, companies are required to notify state labor officials if they plan to fire a significant number of employees.
The brunt of the layoffs disclosed late last week affects CVS’ headquarters in Woonsocket, R.I., and facilities in neighboring Cumberland. CVS is letting go almost 770 employees in Rhode Island, according to a WARN notice filed Friday.
Of those employees, 198 are Rhode Island residents. The remainder are remote employees who report to supervisors in the state.
CVS is laying off roughly 520 Aetna employees in the health insurer’s headquarters in Hartford, Conn., according to another disclosure. The WARN notice said 306 of those workers are Connecticut residents, while the remainder are remote employees.
CVS is also letting go 167 employees from its New York office; 288 employees from its offices in Plantation, Fla.; and 134 employees in Arizona, according to notices filed in each state.
The layoffs span a variety of roles, including assistants, data engineers, customer care pharmacists, actuary executives and corporate vice presidents.
CVS says customer-facing jobs like store or clinic employees will not be affected.
Other states in which CVS has offices, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas, did not have a WARN notice from the company posted in their databases as of Monday.
But in many states where CVS is enacting layoffs, the number of impacted jobs was less than what is required for a WARN notice, so none was filed, CVS corporate communications director Michael DeAngelis told Healthcare Dive.
DeAngelis did not respond to a request for a list of those states.
CVS is one of the largest healthcare companies in the U.S., operating Aetna and CVS Caremark, the biggest pharmacy benefits manager in the country. CVS also operates a network of more than 9,000 retail locations and 1,100 walk-in clinics nationwide.
CVS reported rising revenue in the first quarter but stress from integration costs from recent M&A activity as the company focuses more on direct healthcare delivery.
Earlier this summer, CVS purchased value-based medical clinic Oak Street Health for $10.6 billion. CVS also completed its $8 billion acquisition of home health provider Signify in March.
CVS set forth a restructuring initiative early August, one day after announcing the layoffs. Along with the job reductions, CVS plans to terminate certain initiatives that no longer align with its corporate strategy.
CVS expects the restructuring to generate more than $600 million in savings beginning next year.
