Orange County-based Catholic hospital operator St. Joseph Health System is cutting 159 local jobs by mid-September. The system operates three hospitals which are likely to be affected by the job cut.

St. Joseph System’s job cuts will affect St. Joseph Hospital-Orange, St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton and Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo, as well as St. Joseph’s headquarters in Orange County. The laid off workers will get severance pay, benefit assistance and continuation, and outplacement assistance.

It is being said that St. Joseph is cutting the positions because of multiple external economic factors, such as shrinking government reimbursements, fewer insured patients, rising charity care spending and significant investment losses from last year’s stock market meltdown.

St. Joseph’s hospitals partly rely on income from investments to bankroll operations and expansions. The operator employs total 9,000 workers. The cuts represent about 2 percent of the total workers.

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