New England based supermarket chain Shaw’s and Starmarket announced Friday it will be laying off approximately 700 store-level workers from its local stores.

In a company press release earlier this month company spokesman Steve Sylvan announced the lay offs would occur across all 169 stores, and would affect both full time and part time workers.

“I’ll be leaving for college soon anyway, so I’m not that worried about my own job. But for some of my friends there this is actually a serious concern. The economy’s not good right now, times are tough as it is, this is just coming at a bad time” said Franklin senior and Shaw’s employee Clay Shropshire.

Shaw’s corporation employs about 17,000 workers in their stores across New England. In these tough economic times, mass layoffs are not all that uncommon, as companies try to explore different avenues to save money.

In their press release, Shaw’s said they hoped that these layoffs would help trim budgets enough so that they could avoid closing any stores. At this point in time, they have no plans to do so.

The local Franklin Shaw’s has already faced competition from the new Big Y supermarket that opened just across Route 140 this past summer.

“It has gotten a little quieter since they opened, but nothing drastic. The first couple of nights after the grand opening were pretty dead, but then customer traffic started to pick back up again as things returned to normal” commented Clay Shropshire.

With toughening economic times, we will have to wait and see to determine the long term fate of the Franklin Shaw’s, and the students it employs.