The odds are good that unless you live inside the borders of the Lone Star State that you have never heard of the Christus Santa Rosa Health System. For those of you who are not familiar with the company here is a look at how they describe themselves, “CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System is about people. People we meet and care for; people whose lives we enhance, and those whose lives we save. CHRISTUS is about the people who work here, from our award-winning medical staff to the dedicated people who change the sheets. We’re about people who need us, from small bumps to massive trauma, no matter their economic bracket. We’re about the people of San Antonio, New Braunfels, and all the South Texas communities we serve.” Apparently the hospital believes it can carry out that mission without 400 of its workers.

This week the management of the Christus Santa Rosa Health System sent notice to the Texas Workforce Commission that they will be sending out more than enough notices to qualify as a mass layoff action. For those of you who are not familiar with the idea of a mass layoff action here is a look at how the federal government defines the term, “…mass layoff numbers are from establishments which have at least 50 initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) filed against them during a 5-week period. Extended mass layoff numbers (issued quarterly) are from a subset of such establishments—where private sector nonfarm employers indicate that 50 or more workers were separated from their jobs for at least 31 days.”

On the bring side the layoffs will, because they are a mass layoff action, not go into effect immediately. The actual loss of jobs will occur between the 31^st of July and the 13^th of August. This gives the workers some time to figure out how to get their footing, or at least to begin the process of applying to new jobs. Though in the current economy most of them may still end up on the unemployment payrolls.

Interestingly enough the hospital system is still planning on opening two new facilities by the end of the year. The hospital will open the CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Emergency Center at Alon Town Center ad the CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Emergency Center at Towncenter at Creekside, both are slated to open in late 2012.

The company is looking to re-hire some of these soon to be displaced workers for current opening and openings in the near future. For now about 10 of the workers who are going to be laid off have found new positions within their company. So the impact on the community at large may be minimized when all is said and done.

The company has not provided any information about which job titles specifically were reduced by the job cuts, and whether or not it will be able to bring back all of the impacted workers. They did say that those laid off workers will be give a preference in the new hiring’s.