Bright Horizons Early Education & Preschool has informed Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and the state that due to “natural disaster,” it is laying off 89 workers.
Those employees had already been out of work since April 30, when they were furloughed. But at the time, Bright Horizons had hoped the furloughs would last less than six months.
The child care center, which is also known as Citi Family Center – Jacksonville, at 14000 Citcards Way, wrote: “Bright Horizons did not foresee how significantly and for how long a time the epidemic and related governmental lockdown orders, including orders regulating the reopening and operations of daycare centers, would affect the center’s operations.”
Bright Horizons said in the Sept. 17 letter that the layoffs were occurring “as soon as it was practicable to do so, taking into account the great difficulties we faced in projecting if the center will be in a position to reopen.”
The company still considers the child care center to be “temporarily closed.”
Bright Horizons operates more than a thousand child care centers across the globe and employs about 32,000 people worldwide, according to its website.
In Jacksonville, the layoffs include 34 associate teachers, 20 lead teachers and a variety of other positions.
Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.
