Tacoma Finalizes Layoffs for 200

It looks like job cuts are coming to the civil servants in the city of Tacoma. For those of you who have heard the name, but who do not know much about the city lets begin by taking a look at how the city chooses to describe itself, “Tacoma is Washington state’s third-largest city, with approximately 199,826 residents. Explore this government Web site to find out why Tacoma is known as the City of Destiny.”

Sadly that destiny for the workers of the city is not going to be a good one, at least for many of them. The city is getting ready to cut back on about 200 jobs when the new budget goes into effect. While the city has not outlined too much about the cuts in detail we do know that about 29 people employed by the police department and 27 employed by the fire department will be getting the axe.  Other than that, for now, the city has not said which other department or job functions are the ones more likely to be cut from the city payrolls.

Job cuts of this magnitude are enough to qualify as a mass layoff action under the current federal guidelines. 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, “The Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS) program collects reports on mass layoff actions that result in workers being separated from their jobs. Monthly 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.”

This is not the first time that we have talked about the cuts, but before they were all theoretical, “Sadly the city is getting ready to cut about 200 jobs from the payrolls when all is said and done, according to the current estimates in for the cities 2013 to 2014 fiscal year budget.” Now the budget is coming to pass and the city is getting ready to figure out, in details, who will get the axe and who will remain.

The city is, of course, not the only employer in the city of Tacoma that is cutting back workers. Here is an excerpt that will get you up to speed in no time at all, “Bates Technical College in Tacoma, Washington is laying off some 25 staff members due to budget cuts. A total of 45 faculty members and support staff were issued reduction-in-force notices according to spokeswoman Edie Jeffers. She went on to explain that although the college expects to lay off 25 employees, the additional notices were given to satisfy contractual obligations. The other staffers have the privilege to know about workplace changes that may adversely impact them, before they actually go into effect.”

Update:  Once again recruitment starts in the City of  Tacoma. Candidates staying near by city or outside can apply here.