Alaska telecom company GCI laid off 87 employees Thursday, a spokeswoman said.

The cut amounts to about 4% of the workforce at GCI, which employs more than 2,000 people.

A combination of forces drove the layoffs, including a significant funding cut from the Federal Communications Commission, said spokeswoman Heather Handyside.

The FCC’s rural health care program allows rural health care providers to pay the urban rate for broadband and telecommunications services, with the program paying the difference. In October last year, the FCC notified the company that the agency would reduce payments to GCI through that program by nearly $28 million.

That factored out to a 26% reduction in that funding, according to the 2018 year-end financial report for GCI’s parent company, GCI Liberty.

“I think the biggest impact was from the FCC decision,” Handyside said.

Alaska’s tough economy in recent years was also a factor, she said. When consumers are looking for places to trim their budget, services like TV, phone and internet services could take a hit.

“We had, until recently, about 40 months of job losses in Alaska, and that’s been a strong headwind for us as we try to compensate for the FCC cut,” Handyside said.

In the 2018 financial report, filed in February, CEO Ron Duncan called 2018 “a challenging year” for GCI. He added that there was also cause for optimism, citing the company’s new billing platform and signs that Alaska’s recession is coming to an end.

Thursday’s layoffs primarily affected GCI employees based in Anchorage, Handyside said. Some people at the company’s Seattle office and remote workers in the Lower 48 were also affected.