BURLINGTON - J.W. Peters will soon send 86 people, or more than two-fifths of its work force, home for perhaps six months or more.

The company at 500 W. Market St., which makes precast concrete products, recently filed a mass-layoff notice with the state Department of Workforce Development. The layoffs represent 44 percent of J.W. Peters' existing work force of 195 people.

"We hope it will not be longer than six months," company Human Resources Manager Rhonda Suda said Tuesday. None of the layoffs are permanent cuts, she said.

However, she added that J.W. Peters thought it wise to file the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act notification. "We just have a feeling that this layoff could last longer than six months," Suda explained.

"I don't think we've ever posted a WARN (notification) before," she added.

Suda said a four- to eight-week winter layoff would not be unusual, although in some years winter doesn't slow business much at all. "Sometimes we just have a series of weather days," Suda said.

This year, though, with the economy in the doldrums and construction especially hard-hit, business is markedly slower, Suda said.

JW Peters, which is part of the Cretex Construction Products Group, makes concrete structures for parking garages, bridges, stadiums and the like.

Suda said the layoffs will take effect in mid- to late January. They will affect 78 laborers who are members of Teamsters Local 43 and eight office workers.

Local 43 President Wes Gable said the layoffs didn't surprise him. "Right now what I'm hearing from the company is it's because of the financial credit crisis," he said. "Some of the jobs are held up (by inability to obtain credit).

"And who knows? Maybe some of them are being pulled for now," Gable added.

"We're seeing it a lot - it's not only union jobs."

Suda said J.W. Peters employees, who were informed about the layoffs two weeks ago, seem to be taking it well.

"You really wish you weren't affected by it," she said.

"(But) when there are no projects, there's no work."