Struggling telecom-gear maker Alcatel-Lucent SA plans to slash about 15% of its global workforce, as the company’s new chief executive looks to put an end to billions of euros of losses amid successive rounds of restructuring, reports The Wall Street Journal.
The Franco-American company said Tuesday it would cut its global workforce by a net figure of 10,000 world-wide, while halving its number of “business hubs” in order to refocus on a handful of new technologies and businesses.
The plan, announced in a union meeting Tuesday morning in Paris, will eliminate 15,000 jobs from older technologies such as second- and third-generation wireless equipment, while creating another 5,000 in growth areas, such as Internet routing, union officials said.
The deep cuts are the latest element of Chief Executive Michel Combes’s restructuring push, dubbed the Shift Plan, which is aimed at turning around a company that has posted only one full-year profit since its creation.
As part of Mr. Combes’s plan, Alcatel-Lucent aims to cut €1 billion ($1.36 billion) in costs, sell €1 billion in assets and redirect its resources away from older products toward growth areas like Internet routers. The goal: to become cash-flow positive by 2015.
“To carry out this plan we must make difficult decisions,” Mr. Combes said. “The Shift Plan is about the company regaining control of its destiny.”
Read more of this report from The Wall Street Journal.