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The redundancies at Nortel's facility in Monkstown, near Belfast, will bring Nortel's workforce in Belfast down to 1,600 from a high of 2,400. According to a company spokesperson, the decision was based on the Centre's present and planned workload.
It is the fourth time this year that Nortel has cut jobs at the plant with the systems house area of operations to be the latest target for redundancies. The facility is involved in system integration and R&D for the optical Internet.
The spokesperson added that Monday's announcement will have "no immediate impact" on the company's 720 employees in Galway, Shannon and Dublin. However, the spokesperson would not comment on whether cuts would occur in the future. "All locations globally, including those in Ireland, are assessing the impact of last week's announcement to decrease employees by 10,000 worldwide," said the spokesperson. He added that each facility was being looked at on a case-by-case basis.
In April, 2001, the company announced that it was it to reduce its employee numbers by 20,000 following Q1 net losses of USD385 million and last week's announcement of further cuts, to bring the total to 30,000, were made as part of profit warning issued by Nortel. It expects a net loss per common share from operations of approximately USD0.48. The cuts in Northern Ireland and globally are being made, said the company, to optimise profitability and because of the downturn in the global telecommunications market.
Nortel's spokesperson said that the company would now be entering into a consultation process with its workforce at its Monkstown location "with the aim of keeping redundancies to a minimum."
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