Almost 300 people working for telecoms firms in Dublin, Cork and Shannon will lose their jobs amid a continuing slump in the global telecommunications sector.
Esat, the second-biggest fixed-line telecoms operator in the State, said yesterday it would lay off 200 staff or 15 per cent of its total workforce of 1,300 people. Another firm, Alcatel, which makes telecoms equipment, is laying off 90 people in Cork and Shannon.
Esat - which is a subsidiary of British Telecom - a firm which has similarly reduced its headcount recently - said it was restructuring its business due to current Irish market conditions.
The job losses will be spread throughout the business and residential arms and will be in place for the new financial year in April. They form part of a restructuring of the entire business which will see the merging of its business and residential operations. Esat Fusion and Business will now be known as simply the Esat group.
Esat chief executive Mr Richard Cooke said the current Irish market conditions dictated a fundamental restructuring of the firm. Telecoms analysts believe Esat is suffering from renewed competition provided by its main competitor Eircom which has recently successfully pitched for major contracts.
It also reflects the difficulties faced by telecoms operators that spent millions acquiring new businesses in the late 1990s and are now saddled with billions in debt.
Meanwhile, French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel said yesterday it would lay off more than half of its 160 staff at its Irish subsidiaries in Shannon and Cork.
A total of 90 jobs are to go at the telecommunications company's operations in Cork and Shannon over the coming months.
The company is seeking 75 redundancies in Cork where it plans to close its HLR software development facility at Bandon.
It will also close its logistics centre in Shannon with the loss of 15 jobs. The Shannon centre was responsible for shipping products to Europe for Alcatel's Canadian operations. However, the company has created a new logistics model to ship goods directly from Canada to customers' sites in Europe.
Alcatel also operates a separate telecommunications network services centre at its Bandon facility and a sales and marketing operation based in Dublin.
"The job losses are confined to the software development facility. There are no plans on the other side for redundancies," said Mr Joe Leonard, director of human resources at Alcatel Ireland. Alcatel attributed the job losses to market conditions worldwide.
The job losses in Ireland were not totally unexpected. Employee numbers at the company had already fallen by 40 from 200 last year.
