Catonsville-based Erickson Retirement Communities will cut approximately 260 jobs and the Sparrows Point steel mill will continue to see temporary layoffs, the two companies said Thursday.
The cuts mean more pain for the region’s employment outlook, which has withered in the ongoing recession. The Labor Department will report employment data for December today, and economists expect that report to show another 475,000 jobs lost last month.
“What’s remarkable is that as bad as [today’s] report will be, January’s numbers, released in February, will be even worse,” said Anirban Basu, president and chief executive officer of the Baltimore-based Sage Policy Group. “Many American companies stick to a mantra that they will not lay people off before Christmas. Those numbers will appear in the statistics in January.”
Russian steelmaker Severstal said Thursday it would continue a program of voluntary and involuntary layoffs at four of its U.S. steel plants, including Sparrows Point. The number of layoffs has varied week to week depending on economic conditions.
However, company spokesman Michael Henson said there would be no additional layoffs at Sparrows Point beyond the temporary, voluntary furloughs first reported by The Examiner in October. The company plans to reignite that blast furnace by the end of the month as planned, which “should beneficially affect the layoff situation,” Henson said.
Meanwhile, Erickson said it would cut 2 percent of its national work force of more than 13,000, totaling about 260 people. Company spokesman Mel Tansill said the layoffs occurred yesterday and that the majority were in the Baltimore area.
Erickson CEO Rick Grindrod said in a statement that the full- and part-time layoffs came primarily from the company’s construction and development divisions, and some support functions. None of the cuts involved direct care staff at the company’s 20 retirement communities.
