Another debt collection agency has announced that is laying off a large amount of employees, joining a growing number of companies in the industry that have been forced to reduce the size of their workforces because of the coronavirus pandemic. Coast Professional announced it was laying off more than 300 employees from two different offices in New York state.
The announcement is the second this week that details the departures of hundreds of employees from a company in the credit and collection yesterday. On Tuesday, National Recoveries Inc., a student loan collection agency in Minnesota announced it was laying off 248 employees.
In a WARN Notice (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) filed with the New York State Department of Labor, Coast said it was temporarily laying off 240 employees from its office in Geneseo, N.Y., and 60 employees from its location in East Aurora, N.Y. A published report from last week included details of a Coast Professional employee who was laid off from the company’s office in Elma, N.Y. A layoff notice for the Elma office was in the works as well, according to a published report.
The layoffs went into effect on March 20, and the company notified the state’s Department of Labor a week later. The WARN notices were posted to the state’s website yesterday.
The impact and fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic have caught many in the industry off-guard. As of Thursday morning, for example, Coast was still promoting job openings on its website, although the site where the jobs were actually posted had no Coast positions available.
Announcing that the owners of the agency have elected to not be paid for an indefinite time period as the company moves through these “difficult times,” Jon Prince, Coast’s chief operating officer also said, “We continue to monitor the effects of COVID-19 on a daily basis and hope that these reductions will be for a short duration. As soon as we are able, we will have these valuable employees return to work, as they are important to our organization and culture. We understand that these are challenging times and appreciate all that our communities are doing to support one another.”
Collector Lays Off Part of Offshore Workforce
First Credit Services has laid off 40 of its 280 employees working at an office in Mumbai, India, according to a published report
