One of Arizona's largest health systems says it is "reducing some roles" in an effort to cut costs.
Nonprofit Dignity Health Arizona, which in 2025 was Arizona's sixth-largest nongovernment employer, wrote in an email to The Arizona Republic that Dignity Health is facing "unprecedented economic pressures, soaring costs and complex government and payer dynamics."
As a result, the company made the "difficult decision to reduce some roles in our organization," Dignity Health Arizona spokesperson Carmelle Malkovich wrote in an email. She did not answer follow-up questions about how many jobs and workers were affected, and what kinds of roles were reduced.
"We are committed to approaching this process with compassion and respect," Malkovich wrote. "By
strengthening our operational foundation, we are strategically positioning ourselves to adeptly navigate today's healthcare landscape."
Questions to Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health, which is the parent company of San Francisco-based Dignity Health, went unanswered.
As of 2025, Dignity Health Arizona had about 14,667 employees. It operates major hospitals in the Valley, including Chandler Regional Medical Center, Mercy Gilbert Medical Center and St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, which includes Barrow Neurological Institute and the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center.
Federal law requires 60 days of advance written notice for mass layoffs, which companies mostly do through federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification alerts, or WARN notices. There was no recent WARN notice for Dignity Health layoffs in Arizona, but there were WARN notices about Dignity Health layoffs in California.
Just one Arizona employer posted a WARN noticeof a mass layoff in July. Select Medical Corp. announced it would close its Select Specialty Hospital -Tucson East location, eliminating 99 jobs.
Dignity Health in California recently laid off57 employees in Bakersfield, according to multiple news reports. National Nurses United on Aug. 3 held a rallyto protest what it said were planned layoffs of at least 175 frontline health care workers at 17 CommonSpirit hospitals in California.
The nurses are demanding that CommonSpirit rescind the layoffs, cautioning that the loss of staff will threaten patient safety.
The nurses' union says the positions include registered nurses, plus ancillary staff positions, including patient transporters, physical therapy aides, occupational therapy aides, telemetry technicians, unit assistants, clerks, and unit secretaries. The loss of the ancillary positions will mean more work for nurses, as they will need to take on non-nursing tasks, the union said in a news statement.
Republic reporter Corina Vanek contributed to this article.
Reach health-care reporter Stephanie Innes at stephanie.innes@usatodayco.com or follow her on X: @stephanieinnes or on Bluesky: @stephanieinnes.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Did Dignity Health have layoffs in Arizona? What we know
