VCA Animal Hospitals, the largest network of veterinary hospitals and clinics in North America, is in various stages of laying off nearly 200 corporate and veterinarian staff as it restructures the chain’s corporate headquarters in Los Angeles and closes a hospital in the Bay Area.
In a June 26 letter filed with the state’s Employment Development Department, Maria Druse, a divisional people and organization director with VCA, wrote that the chain of animal clinics plans to lay off 100 employees at its corporate offices in the Sawtelle area of Los Angeles in coming months.
“The first separation will be Sept. 1, 2026,” with layoffs completed by Nov. 15, according to Druse. “The office is not closing; only certain associates will be impacted.”
Positions affected by the layoffs include an assistant vice president and controller, database administrator, vice president in change of data compliance, and information technology personnel involved with operations, telecommunications, purchasing and accounts payable.
The L.A. headquarters isn’t the only part of the VCA chain affected by layoffs.
In February, Katie Baumgarten, another human relations director with VCA, said the chain would layoff 90 through the end of April in connection with the closure of its VCA Bay Area Veterinary Specialists & Emergency Hospital in San Leandro.
“The entire facility will be closed, and all associates at the facility will be impacted,” Baumgarten wrote. Positions affected by the layoffs included billing and credentialed technician workers, and specialists in cardiology, internal medicine, oncology, surgery and veterinarians and their assistants.
A VCA spokeswoman did not elaborate on the extent of the chain’s restructuring in California where it has more than 170 clinics and hospitals stretching across the state.
“To ensure we can continue investing in our people, advancing veterinary medicine, and delivering high-quality care to pets and value to their owners, we have made organizational changes that impact a small portion of our workforce,” the VCA spokeswoman said in a statement provided to the Southern California News Group. “We are committed to supporting our associates throughout the transition — including continuing to work to keep impacted associates within our network through other roles wherever possible.”
The chain, which was founded in 1986, operates a network of more than 1,000 animal hospitals and veterinary diagnostic laboratories across the United States and Canada.
McLean, Virginia-based Mars Inc. acquired VCA in 2017 for $9.1 billion. VCA is a unit of Mars Petcare. The privately-held Mars is a $50 billion-in-annual revenue manufacturer of chocolate, chewing gum and candy and also owns food and nutrition products.
The layoff filings in L.A. and San Leandro were made as part of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — commonly referred to as WARN, which are required when an employer lays off more than 50 employees.
A news report in Santa Barbara said that another VCA hospital in Santa Barbara was closed in March. A VCA spokesperson quoted in the article said that the decision to close the facility permanently “was not made lightly” and attributed “operational challenges” as the reason for the permanent closure.
Industry pressures mount
The layoffs are coming at a time of a national shortage of veterinary professionals and concerns about growing a new crop of replacements in rural America.
“From my perspective, it’s important not to characterize the current situation as a simple national shortage of veterinary professionals. Reality is much more nuanced,” said Matt Salois, president of the Veterinary Management Groups and formerly the economist at the American Veterinary Medical Association, an Illinois-based trade group. “Veterinary workforce pressure is very uneven. While some geographies, practice types, and roles face meaningful recruiting challenges, other parts of the market are dealing with softer demand, affordability pressures, productivity challenges, and margin compression. That is why we are seeing both layoffs and workforce strain at the same time: these are signs of a market recalibrating in different ways across different parts of the system.”
Salois also wrote in a statement provided to the Southern California News Group that the VCA layoffs are one example of how larger corporate veterinary groups are experiencing a market reset differently than some of the smaller or independently owned practices.
“The broader corporate and private equity-backed veterinary segment was built during a period of rapid consolidation, low borrowing costs, and strong demand growth,” he said. “That environment has changed to one of higher interest rates, softer visit volume, and pressure on household budgets. Altogether, this makes it harder for scaled organizations to rely on the same growth model that worked a few years ago.”
A rival chain, PetVet Care Centers, also recently reported layoffs in Washington.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture also cited funding cuts from last year on a federally backed “veterinary medicine loan repayment program” as hurting some job prospects in rural areas. The program helps veterinarians offset burgeoning student loan debt.
On July 6, Ohio’s Department of Agriculture also issued a report addressing potential pathways to strengthen the veterinary workforce.