Detroit to Layoff 1,000

We have talked about the funding issues in the city of Detroit before, and how they have impacted the city’s decision to keep on, or let go of workers. For those of you who did not catch our coverage in December here is an excerpt:

“Things in the city of Detroit are getting tense as many of the cities workers begin to wonder when it is that they will be out of a job. The city is bracing for major layoffs and since at the moment the city is not giving out a lot of information about the nature of what is to come. With their finical situations in limbo and job prospects slim in the general job market, the workers are understandably on edge.

The city is looking to get rid of a minimum of 1,000 workers in order to save itself from finical ruin and at the current moment no one feels safe in their job. The cuts will have to be made sometime around the New Year, otherwise the city will not be able to meet its budgetary needs. That means that the axe will be coming in the near future.

Even the many people who would usually be exempt from such layoff fears, such as police officers and fire fighters, have cause to worry as many other cities have been laying off law enforcement and fire professionals left and right in order to keep their budgets balanced.  Since no word has been given on who will lose his or her work everyone is worried.”

Recently, the city got ready to let go of members of its law enforcement community, “There were some rumors swirling around the department that the layoff notices had already been handed out to 108 members of the force, but the official word is that the notices will not be given out until near the end of the month. On January 23^rd the officers will find out who is in and who is out of a job.”

However, these cuts were not enough and the hits keep on coming.

This week the Mayor of the city, Dave Bing, put out an update on the restructuring plan for the city, and it looks like more job losses will be in order. During that meeting he announced that another 1,000 layoff notices have been given out to the workers of the city. The city’s transportation system, the DDOT bus system, has been moved to a new management company in an attempt to save money in the short term.

So, while despite the efforts of the city council, who worked over the holiday to help avoid these job cuts, the city’s $45 million deficit was simply too much to be overcome without the cut of jobs. To be fair the situation was pretty grim, as the city was expected to run completely out of funds by the end of the month of April if they did nothing to fix the problems with their budget. Still, it cannot be easy on the workers.