80 Are Laid Off Among Fluor’s Irvine Workers : Firm Continues to Pare Staff as Losses Mount

Fluor Corp. on Friday laid off about 20 employees at its Irvine headquarters and about 60 more left voluntarily--including some high-level executives who agreed to take early retirement, a company spokesman said.

The work force reduction comes just two weeks after the engineering, construction and mining company said it expected losses for the fiscal year just ended to total more than $600 million.

At the time of the announcement, David S. Tappan Jr., Fluor’s chairman, said some senior executives would be asked to retire early as part of the company’s restructuring drive, which he said will “set the stage for a return to profitability in 1986.”

During the past year, Fluor has reduced its worldwide work force by about 10%, to 29,000 workers from 32,000.

Piecemeal layoffs will continue at some company units, while others will hire new workers, the spokesman said. He added that Fluor’s employment base will remain stable at about 29,000. Hiring and firing, he said, will be “dictated by the market.”

Although the exact losses for the year have not yet been announced, the company has previously said that the bulk of the anticipated fiscal 1985 losses will consist of write-downs on assets and elimination of good will valuations on past acquisitions.

Fluor, which has sustained a string of quarterly losses during fiscal 1985, has been shedding units it considers to be unrelated to its primary businesses of engineering, mining and construction.