Career Education Corp. to Layoff Over 600 Staff

About 600 employees face an impending layoff as Career Education Corp., a for-profit and post-secondary educational services provider, suffers from a continuous decline in student enrollments over the past several months. Career Education said that the private-sector post-secondary education industry is negatively affected by the alarming drop in student enrollments recently. The job cut, which is slated across the company’s US operations in the coming months, is part of a long-term business strategy of the company to strengthen its position in the market. Career Education added that the company will spend an estimated $8 million for severance payments and other related matters in line with the cuts.

Other education service providers also suffer from the same fate. In November, Apollo Group Inc., the parent company of the University of Phoenix online school, removed about 700 full-time jobs across all operations in the US following a drastic decline in student enrollments. Kaplan Higher Education, a subsidiary of education and media company The Washington Post Co., also slashed its workforce by about 5%, or 770 positions, blaming it on lower student enrollments.