Lucent to cut 10,000 more jobs

More good news for suppliers of P45 forms

Lucent Technologies is laying off another 10,000 workers and will report a wider-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter, the company announced today. The new layoffs will reduce the total work force to 35,000 people. Lucent has been hard hit by the decline in spending by telecommunications carriers. It has been forced to undergo massive layoffs, cut its earnings targets repeatedly and even has flirted with delisting from the New York Stock Exchange. The telecom equipment maker had previously said it expected to report a loss of around 45 cents per share for the fourth quarter. It now sees that loss coming in as high as 65 cents per share. Lucent attributed the dip to new restructuring moves designed to help the company reach a break-even revenue level of $2.5bn per quarter. The company also expects to record a $1bn restructuring charge in the fourth quarter and take an additional charge about $3bn due to a decline in its pension assets. CEO Patricia Russo said in a statement: "Based on conversations with our customers, we are tightly focusing our investments on the nearest and clearest market opportunities that will help them expand their existing networks and offer next generation services." The company recently said that revenue in the fourth quarter would drop 20 per cent to 25 per cent from the $2.95bn posted in the third quarter. In related news, telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks has said that third quarter revenue will be about $2.36bn, in line with earlier predictions. Nortel also said it is working to achieve a quarterly break-even revenue level of $2.4bn. It expects to achieve that goal in the second quarter of 2003. Nortel will formally report third quarter results 17 October. Margaret Kane writes for News.com