Layoffs related to outsourcing, Labor training requests show

[OhioChick]

TAMPA - Even as Florida faces near-record unemployment, some companies continue to lay off workers and move work overseas.

U.S. Department of Labor documents obtained by The Tampa Tribune show that Apria Healthcare, a company that distributes diabetic and respiratory supplies to patients, is cutting as many as 79 jobs in Tampa by next month and shifting at least some of the work overseas.

Meantime, a second Bay area company, Essilor Laboratories of America, said a year ago that it was cutting 159 positions in St. Petersburg. At the time Essilor told a local media outlet that the layoffs resulted from the loss of business. The Labor Department documents show that the layoffs related to the shifting of work to Mexico.

Always a hot-button issue, the shipping of work overseas, known as "offshore outsourcing," may be particularly sensitive today. Florida's unemployment rate hit 11.8 percent in December, just shy of its record of 11.9 percent, set in 1975. The Apria outsourcing news comes on the heels of a plan by Idearc Media, publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages, to cut about 150 jobs in St. Petersburg as it moves work to an Indian outsourcing firm.

Apria filed documents with the Labor Department seeking to win federal training assistance for several hundred workers nationwide under the Training Adjustment Assistance program. The TAA program helps people who lost work because of foreign competition.

It wasn't clear this week exactly how many local employees Apria is cutting. In the company's TAA application it says it already eliminated or will eliminate 79 patient billing and collections jobs in Tampa by March. The company is restructuring its operations and outsourcing some work overseas, although it didn't name which country.

Chris Keithly, a former employee who left Apria after the outsourcing deal was announced, said the work is being sent to India and estimated about 70 jobs in Tampa were affected.

More: http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/feb/11/sp-layoffs-related-to-outsourcing-labor-training-r/

[aquart]

1. Oh, how clever of them to make that association!

I mean, who knew.

[glinda]

2. Ya, I like those respiratory and diabetic items made in China! Woot!

:sarcasm:

[avaistheone1]

3. Shocking! I'll tell you shocking.

Duh! Wonder if anyone in Washington will ever figure out they can not create stimulus jobs as fast as they are being free-traded out of this country.