SEABROOK, N.H. (AP) – The owners of the Seabrook nuclear power plant plan to cut its work force by about 90 jobs – a little over 10 percent – next year as part of an ongoing restructuring, a company spokesman said Thursday.

The layoffs, expected to be announced in January, would reduce staff at the plant from 730 to about 640 workers, spokesman Alan Griffith said.

He said safety will “continue to be the highest priority at Seabrook station … we’re not going to do anything that jeopardizes that.”

“We knew that our numbers were high and we announced about a year ago that those numbers would be reduced over time,” Griffith said. “We knew this was coming … we were preparing for it.”

Employees were told about the planned cuts at a meeting Thursday.

The plant was bought last year by FPL Energy, a subsidiary of FPL Group, based in Juno Beach, Fla.

The recommended cuts came as part of an ongoing review “to make a model, an organizational structure” that ensures the plant is run safely and efficiently and gets staffing levels more in line with other plants, Griffith said.

“We started talking about deregulation in the state three years ago,” Griffith said. “And we knew that meant to a regulated utility like Seabrook that there were going to be changes at some point.”

It is not known yet which jobs would be lost, Griffith said. “It’s going to be across the board,” he said.

Once the affected employees are informed, they will be eligible for severance pay and can apply for other jobs in the corporation, which has offices in 28 states, Griffith said.

Last year, the company started offering retirement packages to eligible employees and said it hoped to achieve the rest of the planned cuts through attrition.

AP-ES-10-30-03 1732EST