500 layoffs possible at MOX plant – Atlanta Business Chronicle

About 500 workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s MOX project near Augusta could be laid off by Oct. 1 due to federal budget cuts, reports The Augusta Chronicle.

The layoffs would cut the project’s workforce from 1,900 to as few as 1,400 by the beginning of the new fiscal year, the paper reports.

About half of affected workers are in construction, and the others are from support services, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for Shaw Areva MOX Services, the project’s contractor. All of the workers have been notified of the situation, Wilkes said.

The MOX facility is about 60 percent complete. It is cornerstone of the nation’s plan to dispose of surplus plutonium by blending it into commercial nuclear fuel, the Augusta Chronicle said.

via 500 layoffs possible at MOX plant – Atlanta Business Chronicle.