More than 1,000 Florida insurance jobs will soon be lost.
Cigna Corp. recently announced its plan to cut 1,100 jobs, or about 4 percent of the company’s workforce. The company also plans to consolidate some of its real estate locations. Cigna, which is based in Philadelphia, employs 500 workers throughout Florida.
In part affected by the recession, Cigna expects to face $30 million to $40 million in cost reduction charges after tax during Q4, according to an article by the Jacksonville Business Journal.
“There’s no determination yet on which offices, which locations and which employees will be impacted,” Spokesman Chris Curran said in the article. “As soon as we begin to figure that out, we will make a final determination and we will start to notify the locations.”
Cigna expects the job cuts to be finished by mid-2009. Anyone affected by the layoffs will be eligible for severance benefits and outplacement support.
“Given the unprecedented economic situation we and our customers are facing, these actions are essential to ensure we can meet their needs for high value, cost effective products and services,†H. Edward Hanway, Cigna chairman and CEO, said in the article. “Decisions like these are difficult and never made lightly, but they are necessary given the current environment.”
During November 2008, Florida saw a total non-farm employment of 7,823,200 workers, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 7,881,800 workers during October 2008 and a 2.6 percent decrease from last year. The state had an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent during November, up from 7 percent during October and higher than the national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent.