Blue Cross and Blue Shield is laying off 165 positions in North Carolina, including in Winston-Salem, said a spokesman on Thursday.
The insurance company did not have a number of how many employees were let go in Winston-Salem, but said that the highest number of layoffs occurred in Durham, said spokesman Ryan Vulcan. Jobs were also eliminated in Fayetteville.
The positions eliminated were jobs Blue Cross and Blue Shield brought on to help the company during the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, Vulcan said.
He did not say if the jobs eliminated were temporary positions.
He said that during the open enrollment period, Blue Cross and Blue Shield “roughly tripled” the number of people it had taking calls, growing its workforce to 1,600 customer service workers, including employees, contractors and vendor support.
“We deeply regret having to eliminate any positions, but our call volume does not justify our current staffing levels,” Vulcan said.
Date:May 18, 2017