Oregon Clinic Furloughs 820 Employees, Including Nurses and Nurse Practitioners

The “mass temporary layoff” come after the “restrictions on performing non-emergency surgeries and procedures.”— April 8 letter from Oregon Clinic notifying the state

I-5, rush hour, March 26 (Henry Cromett)
By Rachel Monahan

The Oregon Clinic, a large private medical practice with dozens of locations throughout the metro area, is furloughing 820 employees, including nurses and nurse practitioners.

In an April 8 letter to the Oregon Dislocated Worker Unit, the clinic's human resources director, Kristin Cole, writes that the clinic began furloughing or reducing hours for employees in mid-March. By the beginning of the month, 80 percent of employees were impacted.

Companies that employ more than 100 workers must file Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings, or WARN notices, when they make significant layoffs. This is the single largest WARN notice filed by an Oregon employer since the COVID-19 outbreak began—and, significantly, it comes from a health care provider.

Related: Oregon employers are laying off workers by the hundreds. Here are the 10 largest layoffs so far.

The letter, which constitutes a notice of "mass temporary layoffs," cites the state's "restrictions on performing non-emergency surgeries and procedures" as the cause of the financial difficulty at the clinic.

"This dramatic loss of business forces us to make difficult staffing decisions in order to allow us to continue operations in the future," the letter states.

Oregon Clinic spokeswomanLiz Delapoer says all 820 impacted employees will continue to receive benefits.

Clarification, 1:40 pm: This post has been updated to reflect that the clinic says all employees will continue to receive benefits.

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