Tellabs, the US telecommunications equipment manufacturer which employs 760 people in the State, announced yesterday that 10 per cent of its Irish workforce would be laid off as part of a worldwide jobs cutting move.
The company, which specialises in the design and manufacture of optical networking, broadband access and switching equipment, employs 525 people in Shannon and 235 people in Drogheda, Co Louth. Shannon will lose 58 people and Drogheda 17. Last month, the company laid off 98 temporary workers at the Shannon plant.
Worldwide, the corporation will reduce its workforce by 6 per cent, letting go 550 people. It has also decided not to fill 1,100 vacancies after laying off 450 temporary workers in the first quarter.
Mr Pat Shanahan, managing director and vice-president of Tellabs, said he expected to achieve the reduction through voluntary redundancies. The Irish operation had been affected by reduced and deferred spending by major carriers, he stated. The group said it was going to "realign its cost structure with its current expectations for lower revenue growth". After a profit warning on April 6th, it announced yesterday first-quarter turnover of $772 million (€680 million), up 21 per cent from the same period last year. Profit amounted to $123 million, up 13 per cent last year. The acting chief executive of Shannon Development, Mr Kevin Thompstone, said Tellabs was an important company to the region, with an ideal profile which was making a hard decision to retain shareholder confidence.
