133 to Lose Jobs as Greyhound Closes an Office

One hundred thirty-three Greyhound Lines employees will lose their jobs in the next few weeks when the company closes a Los Angeles telephone information center as part of a continuing cost-cutting effort brought about by a drop in passenger traffic.

Herb Dougherty, a spokesman for Greyhound in Phoenix, said Friday that the phone center will close by Nov. 1, when six Western centers will be consolidated in Omaha. Employees at the centers answer telephone inquiries about bus schedules and ticket prices.

In another move to cut costs, Greyhound is turning the operation of its downtown Los Angeles terminal over to an independent agent next week, Dougherty said. Greyhound said previously that it planned to turn operations of 120 terminals across the country over to agents to reduce operating costs by $17 million to $20 million a year.

The moves are part of a previously announced restructuring that includes the eventual elimination of 1,500 to 2,000 jobs and the streamlining of a route and terminal network that was designed to handle the heavy bus traffic of the late 1960s. The number of Greyhound passengers has dropped from 65 million passengers 20 years ago to 31 million last year.

Greyhound said employees losing their jobs will receive severance payments.