Most Loral Jobs to Remain in O.C.--for Now : Relocation: The Aeronutronic division manager gives no assurances that the plant will stay or that layoffs will cease.

Trying to calm employee fears, a local plant manager on Monday said that only 100 to 300 of Loral Corp. jobs in Orange County would likely be moved out of state, reversing a corporate report last week stating that local aerospace work would be relocated.

James Woolnough, general manager of Loral’s Aeronutronic division, said more than 80% of the current 1,700 jobs at the division would probably remain in Orange County.

But Woolnough gave no assurances that the plant would stay in the county. Nor would he guarantee that layoffs, which have run deeper this year than the company originally disclosed, will cease.

His comments in an interview were carefully worded because much of the plant’s fate remains unclear after a Loral-led team’s $475-million bid for the aerospace operations of bankrupt LTV Corp. was accepted last week by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.

In a press release last week, the New York company said a “substantial amount” of $350 million in missile work would be moved from its Newport Beach facility to one of two LTV sites.

Woolnough’s comments, though aimed at calming employees, contained enough caveats to leave open the possibility that the plant may be moved out of state if local sites prove unfeasible.

“I don’t expect some decisions to be made for six to nine months,” Woolnough said. “We will begin our planning by the end of the year.

“There will have to be a series of decisions made by the mid-1990s,” before rent on the Newport Beach facility increases tenfold, he said. “Moving people to (LTV sites) is not something that will happen in the near future.”

Bernard Schwartz, Loral’s chairman, left for a two-week vacation after the LTV deal was struck and was not available for comment.

Meantime, Woolnough acknowledged that the company has cut its work force by 800 jobs since the beginning of the year. The reduction is greater than the 600 jobs that Loral executives said in January would be cut from the then-2,500-member work force.

In acquiring Aeronutronic as part of a $715-million acquisition of Ford Aerospace in 1990, Loral promised to remain in Orange County, but executives have since made several confusing statements about whether the company would pull out. They attribute the confusion to the changing defense climate.

Last week’s press release, issued before the court ruled, stated that if an acquisition went forward as scheduled, Loral would offer job security to LTV workers by moving the Newport Beach plant’s work to the LTV missile production plants in Camden, Ark., or Grand Prairie, Tex.

On Thursday, a bankruptcy judge approved the bid from Loral and its two partners, Washington-based Carlyle Group and Los Angeles-based Northrop Corp. The deal is set to close on Aug. 31.

“There are no formal or informal plans in existence to move the entire plant,” Woolnough said. “The acquisition frees up new options as to where we might locate production of our missiles. As to the rest of our operation, it’s my desire to keep the bulk of it in Orange County, if at all possible.”

Woolnough explained that the company was strongly considering moving only a segment of the work force--100 to 300 missile production workers--to the LTV plants.

He said the remainder of the 1,400 employees--mostly engineering, administration and production support workers--would probably stay in Orange County, though not at the current site in Newport Beach.

Woolnough said the company must move from its Newport Beach facility before its lease expires in 1998 or, more likely, before a scheduled rent increase takes effect in 1996.

He said that moving to a nearby site is his top priority because the company wants to retain its skilled engineering and support work force.

Leading candidates for an Orange County site for the engineering and support work force are large industrial parks such as the Irvine Spectrum, Pacific Park in Aliso Viejo, various sites in Santa Ana, and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Asked why he didn’t clarify matters about the plant’s fate earlier, Woolnough said he took his orders on media relations from New York but that the decision about where to move is his, not the New York executives’.

“The division is in charge of its own fate,” he said.