NEWRY – Sunday River Ski Resort has laid off 32 full-time and seasonal employees. Only about five jobs involved full-time, year-round workers, a spokeswoman for the resort said.

The layoffs, which account for about 10 percent of the resort’s staff, are temporary and indefinite, said Darcy Liberty. The resort, along with Sugarloaf/USA in Carrabassett Valley, is operated by the Michigan-based Boyne Resorts.

Sugarloaf will not be affected by any full-time layoffs, but there will be some impact on “smaller” projects, Liberty said. She declined to specify what those projects were but said they would have no effect on the guests who use the resort.

“It’s a result of us doing some cost reductions because of lower-than-expected revenues across the board and the current economic climate,” Liberty said.

She said she was unable to say how many layoffs would be temporary and how many would be indefinite, but the indefinite layoffs include staff that are mostly seasonal and workers who would normally receive a layoff notice at the end of the ski season. In this case, she said, there is no guarantee those let go will be asked back next winter.

“We’re hoping to bring them back,” she said. The seasonal workers include on-mountain staff and maintenance staff.

Workers in the indefinite layoff category are a variety of resort employees including salespeople, she said.

Liberty said upper management has accepted salary cuts and the resort is reducing the hours available for workers in some departments. They will also have two company-wide, one-week shutdowns, including one earlier this month and one scheduled for June.

All employees have been told by their supervisors of their layoff status, she said.

“The impact will be minimal in the summer, but we certainly lost good workers,” Liberty said. The summer activities at Sunday River include gondola/chair lift rides, lift-served mountain biking and conferences.

“The amount of business we take on in the summer is less,” she said. “This is something Boyne is looking at across the board. It’s not so much Sunday River as what Boyne is looking for.”

Boyne operates 13 resorts in the United States and Canada including Loon Mountain in New Hampshire and resorts in Michigan, Montana, British Columbia, Tennessee and Utah.

Last year, Boyne installed the first Chondola in the Northeast at Sunday River, at a cost of $7.2 million, as part of a $14 million upgrade intended to expand the four-season resort’s amenities.

The company also invested $5 million in Sugarloaf improvements, including expanded snowmaking.

In April, Sunday River announced it had hired three new real estate staff people, saying it was coming out of its “most successful sales year,” despite a bad economic downturn across the nation.