Entergy to cut 30 jobs at Vermont Yankee

by Andrew Stein July 30, 2013 vtdigger.org Entergy plans to cut about 30 jobs at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant by the end of the year, a vice president at the Louisiana-based corporation said Tuesday.
The news comes on the same day Entergy reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the company would eliminate about 800 positions from its nationwide workforce of 15,000. Entergy employs about 650 workers at Vermont Yankee in Vernon, meaning layoffs would affect about 4 percent of employees.
‘It’s really across the board,’Terry Young, Entergy VP of communications, said about the job reductions. ‘What we did through this process is really redesign the way we do business and redesigned the nuclear organization’s structure.’
Entergy’s earnings are down more than 50 percent in the second quarter of 2013, from $2.11 a share last year to $1.01 a share this year. To adjust for these decreases, Entergy is reorganizing via its ‘Human Capital Management initiative.’Entergy projects the restructuring will save the company $200 million to $250 million by 2016.
‘Difficult decisions like job reductions are sometimes the very tough outcome of making long-term, fundamental improvements in the way a company works,’Leo Denault, CEO, said in the SEC filing. ‘The redesign process has been comprehensive, thoughtful and focused squarely on being fair to our employees throughout the process and being responsive to the needs of our customers, our employees, our communities and our owners.’