Source: The Canadian Press
Sep 15, 2016
SASKATOON _ The Saskatoon Health Region has announced it is cutting 70 jobs.
It says in a news release Thursday that both union and non-union jobs are affected.
Dan Florizone, president and CEO, says they had hoped to avoid job cuts, but the group is facing a $30.8 million gap between expenses and revenue based on July estimates.
He also says non-unionized employees, including managers, have been notified over the week while individual meetings took place with unionized employees Thursday.
Florizone says they previously tried to reduce costs and minimize job losses by not filling vacancies, instituting an external hiring freeze, reducing overtime costs by 20 per cent and offering out-of-scope voluntary separation program.
He says the total number of people in unionized positions who may lose their jobs won’t be known for several weeks given the collective agreement process that could result in workers being able to “bump”, or take the jobs of others with less seniority.
“We have made these decisions knowing how difficult this is for employees across our region,” Florizone said.
“As a public organization, with a responsibility to taxpayers, a balanced budget must be achieved and with that, job loss has been unavoidable. It’s a direction none of us wanted to take and we are doing our utmost to support those affected and their co-workers during this time.”
The health region ended its 2015-16 fiscal year with a deficit of $35.7 million, and more than 70 per cent of its budget goes to staffing.
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