Two Orlando-area employers have notified workers that permanent layoffs are coming this winter, with pharmaceutical company AssistRX planning to cut as many as 86 jobs starting Nov. 30 and financial services firm Hancock Whitney eliminating 52 positions in December. Together, the two rounds of cuts could affect more than 130 employees, and the AssistRX reduction could grow even larger in the new year.
Documents obtained by WKMG show AssistRX will begin its mass layoff at its center at 2400 Sand Lake Road, with around 86 employees expected to be affected initially. The station reports the cuts could expand further, with 137 additional employees facing layoffs between Jan. 4 and May 2027. AssistRX indicated the workforce reductions are anticipated to begin Sept. 30, and the company told affected staff that “these separations are expected to be permanent,” according to the same report.
The positions on the chopping block at AssistRX span a wide range of roles, per the station's reporting: 57 pharmacy technicians, 13 pharmacists, five pharmacy technician supervisors, five warehouse operations assistants, three CoAssist program managers, one call center director, one operations coordinator and one pharmacy program trainer. It is not yet clear which of these jobs fall within the initial 86-person group versus the potential later expansion.
Hancock Whitney Cuts Tied to Bank Merger
Across town, Hancock Whitney has told the Florida Department of Commerce it is undergoing an organizational restructuring stemming from its acquisition and integration of One Florida Bank, the outlet reports. The bank expects to let go of 52 employees at its location at 33 W. Pineloch Ave., with layoffs set to run from Dec. 1 through Dec. 31. Hancock Whitney said notices have already gone out to affected associates and that the job losses are expected to be permanent, per the report.
Neither company's letter detailed what severance or transition support, if any, would be offered to departing workers, and the station's reporting does not specify how the AssistRX and Hancock Whitney notices were filed beyond noting the layoffs were disclosed in documents reviewed by the outlet.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Florida Layoff Notices
The Orlando announcements follow a similar case in the Tampa Bay area, where Trulieve notified the state it would permanently lay off 58 customer service representatives at its Clearwater call center at 13773 Icot Boulevard, effective May 1, due to business restructuring, according to a WARN notice reported by WFLA. That came even as Trulieve reported $1.2 billion in revenue and record cash flow the previous year, and continues to operate 236 retail stores across eight states, including 165 in Florida, the station noted.
Layoff notices of this scale are not uncommon in Florida's labor market. Through the first four months of 2026, the state had received 105 layoff notifications involving 6,011 positions statewide, according to the Orlando Sentinel. Under Florida's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, employers are required to give workers, their families and their communities 60 calendar days' advance notice before mass layoffs, according to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.
For now, the exact scope of the AssistRX cuts remains somewhat uncertain, since the initial 86-employee figure and the later 137-employee expansion are both described as potential rather than finalized numbers. Workers at both companies are left watching the calendar as the first wave of separations approaches at the end of November.
