Hundreds of Colorado employees laid off

DENVER – As the state braces for new numbers on the unemployment rate, word came this week that hundreds of Colorado employees have been laid off.

Lehman Brothers announced Thursday that they have let go roughly 1,300 people nationally. The firm has shut down its wholesale and correspondent lending activities with its Aurora Loan Services subsidiary.

In Colorado two offices will be consolidated into the Littleton location.

The other layoffs were in Lake Forest, Calif., Sunrise, Fla. and Florham Park, New Jersey.

The firm says the layoffs come from the dislocation in the mortgage markets and regrets the impact this has on their people. Details about the number of Coloradans affected by the announcement were not immediately released.

On Wednesday, Centennial-based Adams Aircraft announced 300 layoffs.

James Hall was one of the employees who got a pink slip the next day.

"They should have given us some heads up," he said. "To find out the day before you're supposed to go to work that you no longer have a job, I don't feel like that was right of 'em at all. They should have known it was coming."

Company spokeswoman Shelly Simi says 170 employees were laid off in Centennial, 80 in Pueblo and 50 in Ogden, Utah. That's 40 percent of the jet maker's workforce.

The Very Light Jet manufacturing company let go people from the operations department.

The company halted work at the Ogden facility through early summer.

A company spokesperson says the layoffs are in an effort to strengthen the long-term operations of the company. They encourage all team members to reapply for jobs when a ramping-up of manufacturing takes place.

In the meantime, executives are working to secure $75 million to $150 million in additional funding.

The Colorado Department of Labor has contacted Adams Aircraft and Aurora Loan Services to make sure they followed the provisions of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or WARN. (Click here for more information on WARN.)

It is a federal law that requires most companies with 100 or more employees to provide notice 60 days in advance of mass layoffs.

An employer found in violation of the law could be fined up to $500 a day.

The state provides several different types of assistance for people once they have been laid off, including retraining and unemployment insurance.

To file for unemployment insurance call 303-318-9000 or toll free: 1-800-388-5515.

You can also go to CoWorkforce.com and click on "file a claim."

Click here for more information from the Colorado Department of Labor.