ABC News has learned that Jenny Craig may close its corporate offices as soon as Friday as part of a likely move to an e-commerce business.
Jenny Craig told its employees in WARN Act letters, which ABC News got, that it plans to close its company site in Carlsbad, California, which is where its corporate offices are, and “end the bulk of operations” at the facility on or around June 24. However, if it can’t get the money it needs to keep running, the site could close as early as May 5.
In another WARN Act letter that ABC News got, the company said it planned to close its New Jersey plant around July 24, but it could happen as early as May 5.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) says that big companies have to tell their employees before closing a plant or letting a lot of people go.
Jenny Craig said in a FAQ sent to workers on Tuesday, which ABC News got a hold of, that it is “starting the process of winding down physical operations and likely moving to an e-commerce model.”
The FAQ tells employees, “We do not know which employees or groups will be affected or if any employees may be kept.” “Because of this, we think you should expect that your job might be affected and start looking for other work.”
Jenny Craig said in a news release earlier this year that the company has about 600 centers around the world, with almost 500 of them in the U.S. and Canada.
The company-wide FAQ had links to help for people who are unemployed in 39 states and Canada.
A request for feedback from the press was not answered right away by a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.
So far this year, thousands of people have lost their jobs, mostly in tech and the media.
Amazon said at the beginning of January that it is cutting a total of 18,000 jobs, which includes layoffs that were reported in November 2022. Last month, the company said that it would be firing another 9,000 people.
Dan Schulman, President and CEO of PayPal, said on January 31 that the company will lay off 7% of its workers, or about 2,000 people.
In a statement with the SEC on Feb. 7, e-commerce company eBay said it was firing 500 people, or 4% of its staff.
Bloomberg Law said in March that Jenny Craig owes $250 million and has been trying to sell itself.
As the weight loss drug business has exploded in favor, the weight loss industry is going through changes.
Ozempic, also known as semaglutide, has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes, along with diet and exercise, if other drugs don’t control blood sugar levels well enough.
Even though Ozempic isn’t approved for long-term weight control, it can be given to obese people off-label and used safely for that purpose.
MORE: Most insurance plans don’t pay for drugs to treat obesity. Experts say that this reduces access and makes things more unequal.
WW, which used to be called Weight Watchers, announced last month that it had bought Sequence, a subscription-based telehealth platform that offers telemedicine meetings with doctors who can prescribe Ozempic and Wegovy, which are similar drugs but given in a higher dose.
The medications, which help people lose weight by acting like hormones found in the body, have recently become more famous because celebrities have said they use them and regular people have posted on social media about losing weight with their help.
This story was made with help from Katie Kindelan, Dr. Avish Jain, Kiara Alfonseca, and Max Zahn of ABC News.
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