STAFF REPORT
An Entergy Corp. company spokesman said Friday that layoffs are
expected at the company’s businesses. Without confirming directly that layoffs would occur at the Entergy-owned Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, LaGarde said there was no timetable yet for the layoffs.
LaGarde said Entergy had “a number of companywide strategic imperatives” underway to evaluate the company’s financial situation, which prompted the evaluation.
Entergy announced earlier this week that its quarterly earnings per share had been cut in half, from $2.11 per share to $1, largely due to “substantially higher income tax expense” after a settlement with the Internal Revenue Service regarding storm-cost financing in Louisiana.
“We do expect workforce reductions to be one result of this initiative. We don’t have final specifics at this time regarding who or how many employees will be affected,” LaGarde wrote in an email. Vermont Yankee is one of Entergy’s smallest power plants.
The company’s generating facilities produce 30,000 megawatts of power, of which 10,000 megawatts are nuclear.
Entergy has 15,000 employees, and 640 of those are at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon.