EnergySolutions, Inc. is laying off about 265 employees worldwide by the year’s end, and it began the reduction in force by giving notice this week to as many as 75 Utah workers.
The move is part of a broader restructuring, the Salt Lake City-based nuclear waste company informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The layoffs will mean savings of $35 million annually, Gregory S. Wood, executive vice president and CFO, said to federal regulators. At the end of the year, investors will see a charge of between $12 million and $16 million to cover severance, termination benefits, employee relocation expenses and facility costs.
This year has been a busy one for the company, which sprouted from a homegrown disposal site for mildly contaminated, low-level radioactive waste into a multinational business nearly eight years ago.
In Utah, EnergySolutions also has experienced a slowdown at the disposal site. Tooele County Commission Chair Colleen S. Johnson said last week that while the company used to pay about $15 million a year in county mitigation fees seven or eight years ago, this year the site will bring an estimated $2.7 million to the budget. The fees are based on the volume of waste disposed of at the site.
Rusty Lundberg, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control, said the company will be responsible for complying with the state’s health and safety regulations regardless of any changes in staffing. Salt Lake Tribune
