Tri-Cities’ largest employer notifies WA it’s laying off 68 workers

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is laying off 68 workers, including 42 at its primary laboratory in Richland.

The Richland laboratory is operated by the Battelle Memorial Institute for the Department of Energy.

It notified the state Employment Security Department of the layoffs under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) on Nov. 18.

The notice indicates the layoffs are permanent. They began Wednesday and will be complete by Dec. 1.

The layoffs also affect three employees in Seattle, three remote workers in Washington, 17 remote employees outside Washington and three at PNNL sites in Oregon.

PNNL, one of the largest private employers in the Tri-Cities with 6,400 employees, previously disclosed it planned to cut 130 positions as it prepared for uncertain funding levels in the federal fiscal year that started Oct. 1.

Lab officials said they hoped the cuts would be made through attrition by offering voluntary layoffs.

Until now, the layoffs had not reached the level that required Battelle to report them to the state.

“As a result of funding uncertainties and evolving federal mission priorities, Battelle made great effort to avoid layoffs by reassigning work, reducing work hours and retaining staff on furlough status in the hope that additional funding would be realized. However, Battelle determined it is necessary to restructure our workforce and reduce staff in both research and operations,” said the notice given to the state.

The latest round touches a wide range of specialties.

The list includes national security specialist, system engineer, IT technician, software engineer, cybersecurity researcher, technologist, staffing consultant, IT engineer, project manager, nuclear engineer, administrative coordinator, materials scientist, mechanical engineer, data scientist, chemist, health physicist, social scientist, human resources staff, project manager and more.

In August, workers were told that Battelle was preparing for job reductions in certain research programs due to uncertainty in the federal budget.

Battelle then said in September that it was eliminating some vacant positions and offering a voluntary separation option to some staff.

The lab also announced in August that it was reducing medical benefits for retirees to save $4 million a year.

The majority of PNNL’s workers are based at its Richland campus, and it is the Tri-Cities’ single largest employer. It had an annual payroll of $706 million as of 2023.

Together PNNL and DOE’s Hanford nuclear site adjacent to Richland, which contracts work to multiple companies, employ about 19,000.

The Tri-City Development Council says that the two DOE projects account for 12% to 13% of the jobs in Benton and Franklin counties but about 25% of the income.

This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 12:29 PM.