EMC follows terrible results with job cuts

Would anybody want to tempt fate by saying 'at least nothing else can go wrong...'?

Following disastrous third quarter results, storage giant EMC has announced it is set to lay off 4,000 staff - on top of massive cuts announced earlier this year. The cuts will mean EMC will have axed 19,000 staff by the time the redundancies are completed in June 2002. The cuts will be in marketing, manufacturing and sales. However, despite the company's continued ruthless cost-cutting, investors were not reassured and last night shares in EMC closed down 17 per cent, or $2.24, at $11.21. EMC yesterday reported a loss of more than $945m, compared to a profit of $458m this time last year. It lost 43 cents a share, with pundits expecting losses of between three and five cents per share. This was EMC's first reported loss for over ten years.