Lucent Technologies, the world's largest telecoms equipment maker, yesterday posted its eighth consecutive quarterly net loss and said it would cut more jobs to try to return to profitability amid the telecom industry's spending slowdown.
Lucent which began a massive restructuring in January 2001, said it would cut its workforce to about 50,000 by the end of September from 56,000 at the end of March and 106,000 in January 2001.
A spokeswoman for Lucent in Ireland said there would be "no change" in the Republic and the job cuts were not expected to affect the firm's Irish operations.
Lucent Ireland, which has facilities in Blanchardstown, Cherrywood and Stephen's Green, has largely escaped the worst of the firm's job cuts so far. The firm employs about 850 people down from about 900 last year.
The group expects to return to profitability during the year ending in September 2003. It said more cost cuts would be needed, but did not say whether that meant more workforce reductions.
The company said its net loss narrowed to $535 million (€602 million), or 16 US cents a diluted share, in the three months to March 31st from almost $3.69 billion, or $1.09 a share, a year earlier. Some analysts said Lucent would probably need to cut another 5,000 to 10,000 jobs below its current target of 50,000, while others thought no more would be necessary. - (Reuters)
