BELLINGHAM — Aramark, a major food service and uniform provider, plans to lay off 386 Bellingham-based employees after the company’s contract to provide dining services at Western Washington University ended.
A Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification has been filed by Aramark with the Washington State Employment Security Department.
“Our contract to provide food/facilities/concessions services at Western Washington University has concluded,” Aramark wrote in an email to The Bellingham Herald. “It is our understanding that affected employees will have the opportunity to apply for positions with the University’s new provider. We are also working with impacted employees to access other job opportunities within our company.”
According to the notification, the 386 permanent layoffs are expected to begin Aug. 31.
It’s not known how many people are employed in the Bellingham facility and whether all or only part of the workforce is being affected by the loss of the Western Washington contract.
Western Washington University announced that Chartwells Higher Education will be its new campus dining partner.
“The vast majority of our front-line staff and student workers will have the opportunity to work for Chartwells on Sept. 1, and the majority of those conversations between student employees and Chartwells have already occurred,” a WWU spokesperson wrote in an email to The Bellingham Herald.
The state employment security department is assisting Aramark in the transition.
“Staff from the local rapid response team and WorkSource center will perform outreach to employees of the organization to ease the transition,” the department said.
This is the second major layoff in the past 2½ years by the Bellingham facility.
In January 2021, The Herald reported that with Western Washington offering mostly online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, Aramark reduced its staff by 183 people.
Aramark is a national company with headquarters in Philadelphia. It has more than 300 service locations, including Bellingham, Spokane and Seattle, according to the company’s website.
