LA Lays Off 400+

The city of Los Angeles seems to be taking one budget cut after another in the recent mood swings of the current long term economic down turn. The city is looking to make another round of cuts to the workers. For those of you who missed out on their most recent round of cuts before this week here is a look at the cuts made just last month, in April, here is an excerpt  that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “The new proposal made by the city major, Antonio Villaraigosa, is getting ready to cut loose 669 workers from the city payroll. According to the current estimates only about 231 of those jobs lost are expected to come from traditional layoffs. Other methods, such as attrition and the non-renewal of contracts for some workers. So even though the 231 number sounds much more reasonable it is likely not to by the only number of people actually put out of a job. In addition the city hopes to raise the retirement age to 67, cut down on the size of the pension for newer city workers and generally shrink services offered by the city.”

This time around the city is getting ready to get rid of more than 400 workers in order to cut back on the budget. The cuts, which are designed to shore up a more than $230 million hole in the city’s budget for the coming fiscal year, still leaves the city with another $199 million to find for the next years budget. On the whole the budget could get worse as the current budget still relies on a serious influx of cash from the state and federal levels, about $76 million in all from those areas that has yet to be approved for the city.

These job cuts will be more then enough to qualify as a mass layoff action. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.” Under the terms of a mass layoff action workers must be give some time to prepare for the job losses. This is designed to help reduce the sudden cuts to the community that could have lengthy repercussions by giving some workers time to find new jobs, or at least to make savings plans.

Interestingly enough the budget does increase for the city in some areas. The city has increased the amount put aside as part of its emergency funds, to almost five percent of the overall budget. The city did not say what emergency it expects to face in the coming year that will warrant the extra funds being stashed away.