Keurig Dr Pepper will lay off 118 employees in Vermont, according to the state's labor commissioner.
Seven Days first reported the job cuts on Thursday. All affected workers at the beverage company will be paid through Jan. 4, Labor Commissioner Lindsay Kurrle said.
“Some workers will be staying on right through to that date, while others may be told they don’t need to come back to work,” Kurrle said.
Keurig Green Mountain merged with Dr Pepper Snapple this past summer. Kurrle said some of the layoffs are due to "redundancies" in the new joint company.
More from VPR — Vermont May Have Paid Keurig Millions Of Dollars. Where Did That Money Go? [Oct. 3]
Kurrle said 82 of the layoffs will be from a production area in the company's Waterbury facility.
"They're closing that production facility, that portion," she said, "and the work will be done in other facilities either in Vermont or out of state."
Kurrle said many companies in the state are having a hard time finding qualified workers — so, she said, former Keurig employees may be able to quickly find new work.
"We are hopeful that we can minimize the time that these affected workers are out of work and help transition them into other jobs," Kurrle said.
Including this latest round of layoffs, Keurig has cut at least 573 jobs in Vermont since 2015, according to records from the Vermont Department of Labor. That includes 35 job cuts earlier this year.
Keurig has been approved for the most money of all companies that have become eligible for payments under the state’s main business incentive program, the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive. But company applications for that incentive and the payments from it are not publicly available.
