CRANBERRY TWP — Westinghouse Electric Co., announced Friday that about 200 workers either took early retirement or were laid off.

Vaughn Gilbert, the company’s spokesman, explained the workforce reductions are the result of a slow down in the nuclear business since last year’s disaster at the Fukushima energy plant in Japan, after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Gilbert said Westinghouse has not lost any contracts for upgrades or new nuclear plants, but many plant owners are waiting to see if there are any regulation changes before they make investments in the industry.

Additionally, Westinghouse supplies fuel and services to the Japanese nuclear plants, and the company is waiting for them to come back online.

The 25 employees who were laid off and the almost 175 employees who took early retirement had positions such as corporate relations, finance and other administrative jobs.

“These separations were not employees in our engineering or product line departments,” Gilbert said.

Its headquarters is in Cranberry.