Vermont Yankee nuclear plant will lay off 165 shortly after closing

Entergy Corp.'s Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has officially notified the state that it will be laying off 165 employees starting in January.

News of the layoffs had been out before, but plant officials made the formal notification to the state on Wednesday under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act — or WARN Act for short.

The plant's workforce already has shrunk from the 625 who were employed there in August of 2013, when it announced it would close at the end of this year. Currently there are 554 active employees.

Plant spokesman Marty Cohn says 79 employees have moved or will move to another Entergy plant.

Of those facing termination Jan. 19, 69 live in Vermont, 48 in New Hampshire and 39 in Massachusetts.