Alcatel cuts thousands more jobs

Doom, gloom and despondency...

Alcatel has added to today's telecoms gloom with the news that it intends to make 10,000 further job cuts this year and will fail to hit operating profit as previously predicted. Alcatel said the 10,000 job losses are on top of the 30,000 staff cuts announced last year. The company will be left with 70,000 employees by the end of next year through layoffs, outsourcing and asset disposals, down from 110,000 at the tail end of 2000. Jean-Pascal Beaufret, CFO of Alcatel, said the business will make an operating loss this year rather than the profit it stated it would make as recently as April. Shares in the company crashed on the Paris stock exchange this afternoon by almost 17 per cent to E7.81 (£5).