GTE Hopes to Avoid Layoffs

GTE California hopes to avoid laying off any of the 62 employees now working at a Thousand Oaks long-distance center that is due to be closed by the end of 1994. Every effort will be made to transfer those working at the facility to other positions, said company spokesman Daniel Smith.

Work now being done at the facility and at two other long-distance units in Southern California is being moved to GTE centers in North Carolina, Florida and Texas, Smith said.

“We haven’t had a layoff since 1971,” Smith said. “Earlier this year, we announced one involving 485 people statewide, some of them in Ventura County. But thanks to attrition and some shifting around, we were able to cancel the plan.”

GTE has 3,000 employees in Ventura County, making it the county’s largest private employer. Slightly more than half the workers are at the company’s state and regional headquarters in Thousand Oaks.