Cerner Corp. cuts hundreds of jobs, but remains Kansas City’s largest private employer
Cerner Corp. eliminated 500 positions across its global workforce on Thursday.
The healthcare IT company, based in North Kansas City, did not say how many of those affected local workers. But officials said the company would retain its status as the metro area’s largest private employer.
Cerner employs about 13,000 workers across several Kansas City area campuses and about 26,000 employees across the globe.
“Cerner remains committed to positioning the company for future success,” the company said in a statement. “We are focused on delivering a higher order of benefits for clients, associates and shareholders. Our recent actions demonstrate our continued enterprise-wide transformation work — ensuring we more efficiently deliver value to clients and set the company on a path to long-term, profitable growth.”
Cerner has not filed a notice to state labor regulators of the reductions. The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires large employers to provide at least 60 calendar days advance written notice of a plant closing or mass layoff affecting 50 or more employees at a single site of employment.
The company was long known for its explosive growth here and across the globe as it pioneered the work of digitizing paper health records. But it has seen layoffs in recent years as executives have sought to reposition the company. Cerner made two rounds of job cuts in 2019 and another in June 2020.
The domestic market has largely completed the transition from paper records and Cerner and its competitors have saturated the market. That has pushed Cerner to look for ways to diversify its business model.
A spokeswoman said Cerner planned to hire 2,600 new employees across the company this year.
Last week, Cerner leaders announced that most of the company’s workforce would not be mandated to return to offices full-time. Tracy Platt, executive vice president and chief human resources officer, said most employees would return to a hybrid working environment in the fall.
