Aramark, the food service provider for Kauffman Stadium and the Kansas City Convention Center, is laying off or reducing the hours of more than 600 workers at both sites.
In a notice to state and local officials, the company said it had experienced “unprecedented interruption” to its business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aramark said both Kauffman Stadium and the convention center had informed it that they do not anticipate improvement in business "for an undefined period of time and will only need our services in a limited capacity.”
On Monday, Aramark, a Fortune 500 company based in Philadelphia, said it planned to permanently or temporarily lay off 358 employees at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and the Cleveland Monsters hockey team.
And in August, the food service company announced it would lay off 81 employees at the Boeing Leadership Center in St. Louis, including bakers, waiters, cooks and housekeepers.
Aramark has taken similar measures throughout the country at colleges with which it has food service contracts.
Aramark officials could not immediately be reached.
The Kansas City layoffs affect 571 employees at Kauffman Stadium and 68 at the convention center. They include bartenders, cooks, supervisors, retail sales workers, cashiers and vendors, among others.
Both notices, dated Oct. 16, were issued under the WARN (Workforce Adjustment and Retraining Notification) Act, which requires most employers with 100 or more employees to provide employees and unions at least 60 days notice of any plant closing and mass layoff.
So far this year, WARN Act notices have accounted for nearly 33,000 layoffs in Missouri, most of them due to the pandemic.
