A defense contractor is laying off 279 janitors and maintenance workers at Brooke Army Medical Center the week after Thanksgiving becautilize its contract is expiring.
J&J Maintenance Inc. notified the state’s labor office about the cuts that take effect Nov. 30, adding to a worsening job market.
The McLean, Va.-based company, which now does business as CBRE Government & Defense Services, has provided facilities operations and maintenance at the Army hospital since 2001, most recently under a five-year, $148.8 million deal that’s set to expire.
“This layoff results from the finish of our contract with the client,” Howard Young, the company’s chief people officer, wrote in the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, letter that it sent to the Texas Workforce Commission on Oct. 1. “These layoffs are expected to be permanent. However, there may be an opportunity for the impacted employees to be hired by the new service provider.”
Some of those affected are members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, according to the letter.
The layoffs are the second in as many months to hit contractors in San Antonio who support the military’s health care system. Last month, TechWerks LLC cut 87 workers at Fort Sam Houston and Port San Antonio who were providing IT services for the Defense Health Agency.
The Labor Department declared employers added only 22,000 jobs in August, down from 79,000 in July and far below the 80,000 economists had expected. The 4.3% unemployment rate was the highest since 2021. The September jobs report has not been released yet becautilize of the federal government shutdown.
Dallas real estate conglomerate CBRE Group bought J&J’s parent, J&J Worldwide Services, in February 2024 for $800 million. At the time, the business employed 3,300 people at 250 military hospitals around the world.
CBRE Government and Defense’s website reveals BAMC as one of its featured projects, along with the U.S. Naval Academy and Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
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