Lincoln confirms layoffs

By Linda Lipp | Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly

Lincoln National Corp., one of Allen County’s largest employers, will cut its workforce here by 16 positions early next year as it outsources some of its technology-related work.

The in-house jobs are being eliminated as part of a Lincoln IT strategy devised to enhance the company’s efficiency and competitiveness, said spokesman Michael Arcaro, speaking from Lincoln’s headquarters in Radnor, Pa.

Most of the strategy will be accomplished through enhanced IT capabilities, new services and cloud-based solutions, Arcaro said, but “we are also increasing, modestly, our use of outsource-managed services for some IT operations.”

All of the workers affected have been notified. Eight will be “rebadged” to become employees of the vendor, and eight will be offered severance packages and services, Arcaro said. Another 16 jobs, bringing the total to 32, are being eliminated at other Lincoln locations.

What is not clear is whether the cuts are the first in a series of job eliminations, or the sum total. Other sources have told Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly that three phases of job eliminations are planned over the course of the next year, but Arcaro said he could not confirm that.

Rumors of pending job cuts at Lincoln's Fort Wayne have been swirling for months, and the company was said to have brought in potential vendors from India to tour the facility. None of this has been confirmed beyond the aforementioned IT jobs.

Lincoln employs more than 1,900 workers in Fort Wayne, where the company was founded more than a century ago.