CWI lays off 120 employees

One-hundred and twenty people will be out of a job by the end of the month, CWI announced this week.

CWI took over the contract to complete the Idaho Cleanup Project in 2005. The company said it has been very up-front with employees about upcoming layoffs as the project moves forward. This workforce reduction completes a process that began in August.

Employees at the site and in Idaho Falls are affected by this round of cuts and have already been notified.

Erik Simpson, spokesman for the CWI, said, “Really the crux of the clean up program at the Idaho site is as we complete the clean up projects, the jobs go away, and that’s been that way since about the mid-’90s, and I think that’s responsible to the taxpayer and it also fulfills out the commitment we’ve made to state of Idaho.”

“The type of jobs that were affects in this latest workforce restructuring event, included union and nonunion, regular salaried employees, supervisors and the types ranged from construction to engineering to administration,” said Simpson.

Simpson said employees who have been laid off get assistance from CWI job fairs. CWI also forwards employee resumes to other companies who are hiring.

As for the latest round of lay-offs, Simpson said it’s the last of this size for the remainder of the fiscal year.

“This latest event of 120 is there really going to be the last of the size, we’re going to have periodic adjustments to our workforce as we complete more projects but not to this scale,” he said.

The CWI just wrapped up a little more than a seven-year contract and came in ahead of schedule and 520 million dollars under budget. The contract has been extend through 2015 to finish the clean-up project, and the budget for the extension is $730 million.

The previous round of lay-offs were in Janurary 2012, Those cuts affected 133 employees.