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EDMOND — Mortgage services company Adfitech Inc., Edmond's largest private employer, said Friday it would lay off half its workforce in December. The company said it would lay off 320 employees because of “abrupt changes in customer needs.” The layoffs are scheduled to take effect Dec. 20. Adfitech said the layoffs were necessary for the long-term viability of the company, which provides outsourcing services to major lenders, banks and mortgage companies. Adfitech has about 620 employees in Edmond, according to a March report from the Edmond Economic Development Authority. After the planned layoffs, the company will fall behind OU Medical...

"If you like your health insurance you can keep it," Barack Obama promised the voters on many occasions. About 20,000 part-time employees of Home Depot recently found out how false that promise is. The company announced that it is ending its health insurance coverage for its employees and sending them to the new health insurance exchanges. They will be joined by employees of McDonald's, Disney, CVS Caremark, Staples, Blockbuster, and many others. A lot of these employers have mini med plans with limited coverage. McDonald's, for example, has a plan that limits health insurance benefit to $2,000 but gives employees...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH)-- In the midst of major changes in health care, United HealthCare has sent thousands of pink slips to Connecticut doctors. Termination letters went to physicians caring for Medicare patients. Those letters were sent out to doctors caring for 'Medicare Advantage' patients. It's a plan, marketed to Seniors to provide additional services through UnitedHealthCare. A mix of primary care and specialty doctors are affected by it. And it comes at a questionable time. Open enrollment for Medicare starts next Tuesday, and it's still not clear at this time as to which doctors are still in the United...

Cary, N.C. — Xerox Commercial Services LLC has notified state officials that it will lay off more than 500 people next month at its technical support and customer service call center in Cary. The company filed notice of the layoffs last month under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act. Most of the 508 positions being eliminated are customer care assistants, but some managerial, training and quality assurance jobs are affected as well. "These reductions, while very difficult decisions, reflect the changing business requirements of our clients," Xerox spokesman Bill McKee said in an email to WRAL News. "The changing...

PHH Mortgage is laying off a third of its Jacksonville work force, cutting 365 positions by December. The move, of which employees were notified Thursday, leaves about 700 workers left on the First Coast. Most of those that are being laid off work in the mortgage origination department. They will received 60 days pay in lieu of notice, said Dico Akseraylian, vice president of communications for parent company PHH Corp. The move comes on the heels of Wells Fargo and Chase announcing layoffs in their mortgage department. PHH's reason for the cuts are similar to those of other industry players,...

The Brayton Point Power Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in New England, is shutting down amid a prolonged slump in energy prices that is forcing power operators nationally to rejigger their budgets and seek out more affordable production strategies. The closure will result in 240 job losses at the Somerset, Mass.-based facility. Its owner, an affiliate of New Jersey-based private equity firm Energy Capital Partners, said in a statement that steps would be taken to mitigate the effects of the job cuts for Brayton Point’s former workers....

There Is No Shutdown … For Non-essential Federal Employees, Only Citizens Oct 6 Posted by tonysanders What is this horrid government shutdown I keep reading about? It isn’t for Federal employees, since the House passed legislation paying all non-essential Federal employees that were furloughed for their missed time. (I President Obama signs it, that is). Stated differently. Non-essential Federal employees received a taxpayer-funded vacation. The government shutdown is a way for the Administration and Senate to punish Americans for Republicans not rubber-stamping the funding of Obamacare.

Avita Samuels has worked at the Mall of America in Minneapolis for the last four years, juggling a sales job with her studies in political science and law at the University of Minnesota. The 24-year-old has been the top sales associate for the last three years and works between 29 and 35 hours a week. But over the past few months, she said, she has watched as friends working in stores around her have their hours and benefits slashed – and she's worried that she will be next. Forever 21, the clothing store, told staff last month in a memo...

‘They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs,” President Obama shouted on Thursday. “There is no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs.” At least 30,377 Americans would beg to differ. Amid their new, Obamacare-generated non-working hours, they might observe that “no widespread evidence” is hardly a categorical denial. Either Obama flat-out yelled lies at a rally in Largo, Md., or he occupies a bubble as airtight as the International Space Station. Perhaps Obama is encircled by yes persons who insulate him from evidence — “widespread” or otherwise — of the increasing cruelty that...

Merck & Co (MRK.N), taking a cue from other drugmakers that have slashed research spending to bolster earnings, on Tuesday said it plans to cut annual operating costs by $2.5 billion by the end of 2015 and eliminate 8,500 jobs. By slimming down, Merck aims to narrow its focus to products with the best chance of winning regulatory approval and achieving substantial sales, while jettisoning research products with less likelihood of success. The planned job cuts, representing more than 10 percent of the company's global workforce of 81,000 employees, would be in addition to previously announced cuts of 7,500 positions.

I'd love to read a few articles entitled: "Obama Threatens to Shut Down Government", "Democrats Threaten to Shut Down Government", "Harry Reid Threatens to Shut Down Government". Those would be the truth in bold print. "Truth in Advertising" so to speak. The reality is that democrat politicians are throwing temper tantrums over adding one more exemption to the huge pile of exemptions they've already issued. They've given exemptions to their fat cats, big businesses, and corporate welfare pals. They've given exemptions to countless cronies. They've even given an exemption to themselves after this really odd whining about ObamaCare draining their...

ObamaCare's impact on jobs is hotly debated by politicians and economists. Critics say the Affordable Care Act, with its employer mandate to provide health insurance, gives businesses an incentive to cut workers' hours. This year, report after report has rolled in about employers restricting work hours to fewer than 30 per week — the point where the mandate kicks in. Data also point to a record low workweek in low-wage industries. In the interest of an informed debate, we've compiled a list of job actions with strong proof that ObamaCare's employer mandate is behind cuts to work hours or staffing...

Due to the new regulations and lower reimbursement rates, many healthcare providers are laying off massive amounts of workers to offset the costs of Obamacare. In 2009, Obama visited the Cleveland Clinics and touted that the example they provide would be what Obamacare would provide nationwide. Technically, he's right, just not for the better.

As was reported earlier this week, BlackBerry will be laying off 4,500 employees, over a third of its workforce. The layoff comes in an unexpected early earnings guidance release, in which the struggling manufacturer reveals it lost almost $1 billion last quarter. The loss is mainly attributable to the failed launch of BlackBerry's Z10 smartphone. The company says it expects a "primarily non-cash, pre-tax charge against inventory and supply commitments in the second quarter of approximately $930 million to $960 million" due mainly to the Z10. Moving forward, BlackBerry appears to be stepping back from the mainstream consumer market to...

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage said Wednesday it will cut 332 more jobs at its offices in the Twin Cities. The cuts follow a decline in mortgage refinancing activity throughout 2012 and in early 2013, Peggy Gunn, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman, said in an email Wednesday. The cuts will take place over the next 60 days. The layoffs at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage follow an announcement of 350 job cuts in the same division July 18.

BlackBerry Ltd. is planning major staff reductions before the year is out, according to a published report citing unnamed sources. The Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker has an employee base of about 12,700 while the cuts would come from across the company’s entire operations, a report in the Wall Street Journal published Wednesday said. “Organizational moves will continue to occur to ensure we have the right people in the right roles to drive new opportunities in mobile computing,” a BlackBerry spokesman told the newspaper. The cuts—if true—would be the deepest and most extensive in the company’s history, eclipsing the 5,000 jobs...

Fast food restaurant owners, reportedly including McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts, are lobbying Congress for Obamacare changes apparently because when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, they’re not lovin’ it. The industry wants the Obamacare-installed definition of full-time work to be increased from 30 hours to 40. A website called 40hoursisfulltime.com has been launched to support to effort. The Affordable Care Act requires large employers to provide health insurance coverage to every full-time worker, although the employer mandate has been postponed for one year. Employers around the country — particularly but not limited to the restaurant industry — are retrenching...

US broadcast network National Public Radio plans to shed 10% of its staff in an effort to close a $6.1m (£3.8m) budget deficit, a spokeswoman has said. It will offer voluntary redundancies to its roughly 840 employees. The broadcaster put the budget shortfall in part down to a decline in corporate grants amid the slow US economy. National Public Radio (NPR) reaches 27 million listeners a week through 975 member stations across the US. The redundancies follow a series of shake-ups in the non-profit's leadership, and a 2008 reduction of about 8% of its staff. NPR, based in Washington DC,...

President Obama acknowledges there are some glitches as his massive ObamaCare reorganization launches. And one major problem is, contrary to the Democrat's confident prediction when signing it, the more Americans learn about his signature transformation of the United States, the less they like it. Much less. A new CNN/ORC International Poll just out shows that today a strong majority of Americans oppose most or all of the plan's provisions, now scheduled to begin registering Americans on Oct. 1. While support for the so-called Affordable Care Act has plunged by 23%, or 12 points. In January a majority of Americans, 51%,...

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, The Wendy's Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship...