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Sandia National Laboratories could lay off between 40 and 80 employees to meet projected federal budget cuts in 2008.

The labs' executive office will make a final decision on the number of cuts in early December, Michael Padilla, a spokesman for the Albuquerque labs, said today.

The reductions are significantly less than those projected for Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is anticipating between 500 and 750 layoffs out of its 12,000 employees.

In June, Sandia officials had projected they might have to cut some 625 full-time positions and 300 contractors' jobs. Sandia has a work force of 8,400.

Both labs are facing possible budget cuts as Congress debates funding for the system of national nuclear weapons laboratories.

Lawmakers have not yet come up with a final budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Layoffs will come from all areas of Sandia, Padilla said.

Sandia has been reducing its work force by attrition in preparation for the cuts, officials said. The labs also have been shifting employees to other work areas deemed more important, Padilla said.

"One key factor is that our work for others (agencies) has increased over a number of years," Padilla said. "The skills of our work force have diversified intensely, thus making our employees more able to move to other areas of the laboratories."

Severance packages will be offered only if other jobs can't be found for the employees. Those packages generally provide one week's pay per year of service after 1993 and a percentage of salary for years before that - but they will differ based on the individual, he said.

So far, the cuts are just projections - and there's a possibility there could be no cuts at all, Padilla said.

"It's all based on a big `if,' " Padilla said.

Employees will be notified of layoffs before the news media are, he said.

"We want to make sure the employees know what's happening before the public knows," Padilla said.