DaVita cutting 200+ workers. Finances ‘challenging’ for former major Tacoma employer

Kidney dialysis services company DaVita this week announced staff cuts for some workers at its Federal Way campus.

Karen Modlin, senior director of communications for the company, confirmed the layoffs with The News Tribune via email.

The company is making reductions in its accounting department affecting more than 200 workers. Many of the jobs are to be outsourced next year.

“We are supporting every teammate with robust financial and non-financial resources throughout this process,” Modlin wrote.

She added that the layoff action “does not impact clinicians, and we do not anticipate patient care to be disrupted.”

No further details were provided and no Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification was on file Wednesday with the state’s Employment Security Department.

DaVita announced plans for a departure from its Tacoma corporate site in 2017 and relocated approximately 500 workers to Federal Way in 2021.

This year, it sold its new Federal Way building for $93.5 million in a sale-leaseback arrangement with an LLC.

DaVita’s former Tacoma office building, the historic Sandberg-Schoenfeld building, is now in the planning stages to convert the space to luxury apartments.

In a financial report released Oct. 28, the company’s leader described the third quarter for 2022 as “challenging.”

“Like others in the healthcare community, negative volume trends due to COVID and continued labor pressure impacted our financial performance more than expected,” chief executive officer Javier Rodriguez said in the report.

During the three months ending September 30, DaVita repurchased 2.1 million shares of its common stock for $185 million, at an average cost of $87.10 per share.

The Denver-based company and its dialysis clinics serve the U.S. and 10 other countries. It has a U.S. workforce of 55,000, according to its corporate website.