BNS: Lithuania's Ignalina N-plant to lay off about 50 pct of workforce in 2010
Updated 2008-10-06
VILNIUS, Oct 06, BNS - Lithuania's Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant (INPP), which is making arrangements for full closure late in 2009, will lay off about 50 percent of existing workforce in 2010."We have been reducing our workforce gradually - the number of employees declined by 150-200 per year in five years. In 2010 we will have to bid farewell to almost a half of 3,000 existing employees of the plant. So far we have been dismissing those who are of retirement age or who have found another job," INPP CEO Viktor Shevaldin told the Veidas weekly.
The plant sought to keep the key experts for decommissioning projects since there would be work for further 25 years, he added.
New nuclear facility due to be built in Lithuania would employ a new generation of employees, Shevaldin said.
New plant was unlikely to be launched in 2015 he said adding that more feasible timing for the startup was 2022 or slightly earlier.
The first unit of INPP was closed late in 2004, while the second - and the last one shall be shut down late in 2009 under Lithuania's pre-accession commitments to the European Union (EU). Still, Lithuania's authorities are
trying to negotiate the extension of INPP's lifespan by mid-2012.
