Several of Beaumont's clinical teams across all eight hospitals have been sidelines for weeks due to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's temporary ban on elective procedures and because resources and operating rooms have been converted to intensive care units for COVID-19 patients, Fox said.

"We can't sustain it by keeping this large group on the payroll the way we have been up to this point," Fox said. "So we have to make some tough decisions."

Beaumont is resuming some "time sensitive" surgeries, biopsies and cancer procedures that have been delayed for weeks because of the shift to handling the COVID-19 surge, Fox said.

Fox said Beaumont's first quarter loses were sustained in the last two weeks of March when the coronavirus outbreak began to push metro Detroit hospitals to capacity and elective surgeries and other procedures were canceled to create capacity for a surge of COVID-19 patients.

The Beaumont CEO said the cost of personal protection equipment "has gone up dramatically."

"What we used to pay a dollar for a gown maybe six weeks ago is now $6 a gown," Fox said. "And we're trying to get it from all different sources. The supply chain definitely was not ready for a pandemic — and that's impacted us significantly."

Beaumont's mass layoffs come a week after it temporarily ceased operations at Beaumont Hospital Wayne after seeing a steep drop-off in hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Doctors at Beaumont Wayne and Wayne County politicians have been pressuring the hospital system to reopen that community hospital.

"The medical staff is really at odds with the executive leadership of Beaumont Health in Southfield. We are exploring ways to open up Wayne," Muzammil Ahmed, M.D., chief of staff at Beaumont Hospital Wayne, told Crain's on Monday. "We have a family medicine program for residents and deliver 100 babies each month. We want them to open it up. We are not pleased with their priorities."

Fox said Tuesday that the hospital in Wayne is being sanitized and converted back to normal medical-surgical use after being utilized to treat only COVID-19 patients from late March to mid-April.

"There is no plan to close the Wayne hospital," Fox told reporters.

Last week, Beaumont began informing unionized workers at its Wayne, Trenton and Taylor hospitals of pending layoffs and that some employees would be redeployed to its other hospitals in metro Detroit.

Beaumont Health's temporary layoffs and elimination of jobs follows similar moves by some of its competitors in Southeast Michigan.

The Detroit Medical Center has furloughed some 480 employees — 4 percent of its 12,000 employees — and Trinity Health Michigan has furloughed 2,500 employees and temporarily imposed pay cuts for 83 executives ranging from 15 percent to 25 percent.

Of Beaumont's 2,475 temporary layoffs, most involve hospital administrative staff and others who are not directly caring for patients with or without COVID-19. Fox said as demand for non-COVID-19 medical care is restored, the laid off employees will be recalled.

Most of the 450 positions eliminated are part of the corporate staff or serving in other administrative roles. Those employees will receive lump-sum severance packages, Beaumont Health said in a news release.

Beaumont Health employees being laid off are being asked to apply for unemployment insurance, which can be up to $962 per week through July with both state and federal assistance.

Laid-off employees can maintain their health insurance plans with normal employee contributions during the layoff period, Beaumont Health said in the release.

"We will do everything we can to assist our employees affected by these changes," Fox said in a statement. "We never want to have to make decisions like this, but no one could have predicted the extraordinary impact this virus would have on health care and society overall."

— Crain's Senior Reporter Jay Greene contributed to this report.