Chicago Layoffs

With Rahm touting moving jobs from the 'burbs to Chicago, even though all the positions are filled and no one actually out-of-work gets put to work, we are amused when stories like this pop up:

• Northwestern Memorial Hospital confirmed Wednesday that it has laid off 230 employees over the last month as part of an effort to reduce its cost structure by a quarter by 2017.
  
  The Streeterville health system, which has about 7,000 employees, said in a statement that 52 of those who lost their positions have found new jobs, most at the hospital. It said several others are being considered for roughly 200 openings.
  
  A spokeswoman said the hospital has cut jobs each of the past several years after annual reviews of its operations conducted amid budget discussions.

200 openings that might very well be beyond the capacity of the laid-off employees' skills ability. But Rahm is going to tout janitorial staff moving from one locale to another as a sign of an economic turnaround.