Medical device companies have been steadily cutting jobs for the past 18 months, eliminating thousands of positions as firms look to lower costs, close facilities or restructure businesses.
More than 14,000 employees in the device industry have been laid off since the start of 2023 or will lose their jobs in the coming months, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings analyzed by MedTech Dive.
The cuts are not limited to specific industries or larger companies with thousands of employees — medical technology firms of every size in numerous sectors have filed WARN notices across the U.S.
MedTech Dive analyzed industry WARN filings in state databases from Jan. 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024. The project has shown that medical device companies have been consistently shedding positions, both while the industry was grappling with macroeconomic pressures and lingering COVID-19 effects and as firms have reported a return to growth.
The diagnostics industry has taken the largest hit, representing more than 5,000 layoffs over the period analyzed, as testing demand in the sector has plummeted from its COVID-19 peaks. Cue Health accounted for more than 1,200 job cuts on its own, according to the data. In May, the company ultimately announced it would shut down.
Meanwhile, some of the medical device industry’s biggest players have cut positions, including Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Abbott and Thermo Fisher Scientific.
The number of planned layoffs per quarter has fallen after peaking in the second quarter of 2023 at more than 4,000 cuts. Still, the number of affected positions in WARN filings has exceeded 1,800 in each of the past three quarters.
Methodology:
MedTech Dive collected state WARN filings from Jan. 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, and manually narrowed down the reports to those affecting the medical device industry, defined as companies making medical device products regulated by the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. The reports include all states except for Arkansas, which doesn’t have a public WARN database.
The WARN Act requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide at least 60 days’ notice in advance of a plant closing or a layoff affecting 50 or more people at a single location. However, there are some exceptions for faltering companies and unforeseeable circumstances. Some states, including California, New York and New Jersey, have their own reporting requirements in addition to the federal law.
For consistency, the layoff reports in MedTech Dive’s analysis are limited to state filings and do not include layoffs reported in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, general company announcements or layoff plans outside of the U.S.
Most states report the date a WARN report was filed, but some states track the date a report was received. Those states include Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. Minnesota and Pennsylvania only note the month and year of filings.
Some states, such as California, report the number of employees affected at each individual site in a layoff. MedTech Dive combined filings that were reported for the same company on the same date in the same state after confirming they were not duplicates.
MedTech Dive removed filings in 2024 from Bionano Genomics because of potential duplicates across multiple states. Bionano reported in a March SEC filing that it would lay off 110 to 125 employees.
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