Cable & Wireless slashes 4,000 jobs

Cable & Wireless is the latest company to deepen the dot-com gloom, saying it will cut 4,000 jobs over the next 12 months after warning yesterday of falling revenue in the US and Japan.

The company attributed the downturn in US business to the sharp drop in the price of internet access, which fell by about 50 per cent in the year. The decline in Japanese revenue was blamed on a 40 per cent reduction in the price of international calls from Japan. The 4,000 job losses - about 22 per cent of Cable & Wireless's global workforce - will be concentrated in the UK and the US. They follow about 1,500 job cuts at the end of last year. However revenue for the year ending 31 March is still expected to rise by 12 per cent with expected earnings of 14 to 16 cents per share, narrowly missing analysts expectations of 17 cents. After a 20 per cent drop yesterday to 545p, Cable & Wireless shares opened at 526p this morning.