OAKLAND — Bay Area employers have filed official warnings for layoffs affecting nearly five times as many workers in April compared with March, staffing reductions that include the Oakland Athletics baseball club, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and Fry’s Electronics.
Through April 29, the state’s labor agency had receive official WARN notices alerting the state agency of layoffs that affect slightly more than 69,000 workers in the Bay Area, according to documents on file with the Employment Development Department.
The Bay Area layoffs disclosed so far in April are five times as great at the 13,900 in announced layoffs that employers initiated in the nine-county region during March, an analysis of the EDD documents by this news organization shows.
The job markets in Alameda County, Santa Clara County, the Peninsula, and San Francisco were particularly hard hit by the layoffs that were received in recent days by the EDD. In the great majority of cases, the job cuts have already been undertaken by the employers.
The Oakland Athletics reported to the EDD that the baseball club has laid off slightly over 800 workers. The dismissals of Oakland A’s staffers were effective on March 17, but the EDD received the layoff notices April 27.
“As a result of the COVID-19 emergency, Athletics Investment Group LLC is ordering a mass layoff of certain employees,” Andre Chambers, vice president of people operations for the Oakland A’s, wrote in a letter to the EDD and others that was dated April 10.
Back of the House, a San Francisco-based company involved in the creation of concept-oriented restaurants, laid off about 745 workers, documents received on April 24 by the EDD show.
Abercrombie & Fitch told the EDD that it had decided to lay off about 1,145 employees in the Bay Area, including 425 in San Mateo and 330 in the East Bay.
Oaks Card Club in Emeryville has laid off 360 workers, while Bay Area Sports Catering has dismissed 355 workers in Oakland, the WARN notices show.
Davis Development laid off 190 in Santa Clara, the company’s WARN notice showed.
In the Monterey-Santa Cruz region, the highest-profile recent layoffs occurred at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has cut 220 jobs.
Fry’s Electronics, another well-known name, furloughed 57 workers. The job titles involved in the WARN notice from Fry’s listed no retail clerk categories. The biggest chunk of the job cuts at Fry’s consisted of 15 jobs lost in accounts payable, accounts receivable, or payroll, a review of the WARN notice showed.
“The furlough end date is currently unknown and will depend on pandemic developments, government orders in the interim, and Fry’s business needs,” Randy Fry, president of the consumer electronics retailer, wrote in an April 13 letter to the EDD.
On Thursday, it was clear that more than a few workers have become restless about being forced from their jobs as a result of state and local government mandates.
“I want to get back to work,” said Jennifer Leuchters, a Concord resident who had been working at a Walnut Creek doctor’s office until she was laid off. “Working is better than unemployment.”
