Loral Says Most Orange County Jobs to Remain : Defense: It reverses a statement that it would eliminate its 1,700 Southland positions. The report came after it won a bid for two LTV units.

Trying to calm employee fears, a plant manager said Monday that only 100 to 300 of Loral Corp.’s jobs in Orange County are likely to be moved out of state, reversing a corporate report last week that all local aerospace work would be relocated.

James Woolnough, general manager of Loral’s Aeronutronic division, said more than 80% of the 1,700 jobs at the division will likely remain in Orange County.

But Woolnough gave no assurances that the plant will stay in the county. Nor would he guarantee that layoffs, which have run deeper this year than the company announced, will cease.

His comments in an interview were carefully worded because much of the plant’s fate remains unclear after a Loral-led team won a $475-million bid for the aerospace operations of LTV Corp., which is in bankruptcy proceedings. A U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas accepted the bid last week.

In a press release last week, New York-based Loral said a “substantial amount” of $350 million in missile work would be moved from its Newport Beach facility to one of two LTV sites.

Woolnough’s comments, though aimed at calming employees, contained enough caveats to leave open the possibility that the plant will be moved out of state if local sites prove unfeasible.

“I don’t expect some decisions to be made for six to nine months,” he said. “We will begin our planning by the end of the year.

“There will have to be a series of decisions made by the mid-1990s,” before rent on the Newport Beach facility increases tenfold, he said. “Moving people to (LTV sites) is not something that will happen in the near future.”

Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz, who left for a two-week vacation after the deal was struck, was unavailable for comment.

Meantime, Woolnough acknowledged that the company has cut its work force by 800 since the beginning of the year. The reduction is greater than the 600 jobs that Loral executives said in January would be trimmed from the then-2,500-member work force.

In acquiring Aeronutronic as part of a $715-million acquisition of Ford Aerospace in 1990, Loral promised to remain in Orange County. Since then, executives have made several confusing statements about whether the company would pull out. They attribute the confusion to the changing defense climate.

Last week’s press release, issued before the court ruled on the bid, stated that if an acquisition went forward as scheduled, Loral would offer job security to LTV workers by moving the Newport Beach plant’s work to LTV missile production plants in Camden, Ark., or Grand Prairie, Tex.

Loral bid for LTV’s aerospace operations along with two partners, Washington-based Carlyle Group and Los Angeles-based Northrop Corp.