Whole Foods to cut health care for parttime workers

NEW YORK — Whole Foods, the grocery chain owned by Amazon, is cutting health care benefits for its part-time workers, a move that could leave about 1,900 of its employees without medical coverage.Starting next year, Whole Foods employees have to work at least 30 hours a week to qualify for its health care benefits, up from the 20 hours a week it currently requires.The grocer, which has about 95,000 workers, says it’s making the change “to better meet the needs of our business and create a more equitable and efficient scheduling model.”Online shopping giant Amazon.com Inc. bought Whole Foods two years ago for nearly $14 billion, cutting prices on some items and adding its smile logo in its aisles.News of the benefits change was first reported by Business Insider.By Joseph Pisani, The Associated Press