Northwell Health is laying off \u201cunder 4%\u201d of its\u00a0IT department workforce in an effort to reduce spending, a spokesperson for the health system\u00a0said\u00a0Friday.<\/p>\n
New Hyde Park-based Northwell, the state\u2019s largest health system and private employer, did\u00a0not disclose the number of people affected by the layoffs, but said it was \u201cless than 0.1%\u201d of the company\u2019s overall workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made the difficult decision to eliminate a limited number of positions in the organization,\u201d Barbara Osborn, deputy chief public relations officer for at Northwell,\u00a0said in a statement.\u00a0\u201cDecisions like this are never taken lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n
“In today\u2019s economic and policy environment, we\u2019ve taken a number of steps to manage resources responsibly \u2014 including reducing spending and pacing the timing of certain investments,” the statement continued.<\/p>\n
The impacted workers are not represented by a union, Osborn said in a follow up email.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Northwell employs more than 100,000 people in New York and Connecticut.<\/p>\n
The IT layoffs come on the heels of layoffs the company announced in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Northwell at the time said it eliminated a “limited number of positions” from its facilities on Long Island, in New York City and in Westchester\u00a0as part of a plan to reduce spending, Newsday reported<\/a>. The health system did not\u00a0disclose how many people were impacted, but said it was\u00a0less than 1% of its workforce.<\/p>\n Another hospital network, Rockville Centre-based Catholic Health,\u00a0also announced job cuts last year, laying off 1% of its more than 17,000 employees, Newsday reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n One in five people on Long Island are employed in the health care and social assistance sector, making it the Island\u2019s biggest industry, said Shital Patel, principal economist at the New York State Department of Labor\u2019s division of policy, strategy\u00a0and research.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also the Island\u2019s biggest job growth engine, adding 42,852 jobs between 2014 and 2024, compared to overall private sector job growth of 62,895, Patel said.<\/p>\n Health care has been \u201cthe leading job generator over the past decade,\u201d Patel said in an emailed statement Friday. \u201cThe aging of the baby boom generation has increased demand for health care services.\u201d<\/p>\n But hospital systems broadly are facing\u00a0lower revenue<\/a> from federal Medicare and Medicaid insurance, said John August, the director of health care and partner programs at Cornell University\u2019s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s federal budget bill enacted sweeping cuts to Medicaid and changed who is eligible to receive Medicaid and Medicare benefits, programs that offered insurance for low-income families, older adults\u00a0and those with disabilities. Those cuts risk curtailing hospital revenue, as hospitals will likely see more uninsured patients<\/a> in need of care, August said Friday.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of systems are very concerned with seeing a reduction in government revenues, which for almost all hospitals makes up a substantial part of their revenue, especially in New York,\u201d August said.<\/p>\n At the same time, hospital systems in New York face a shortage of health care providers, including nurses and physicians, August added.<\/p>\n