|
Internet, data and voice company WorldCom, which opened an international data centre in Dublin two weeks ago, reported a drop in profits on the heels of redundancy announcements in EMEA earlier this month.
Although WorldCom has confirmed plans to reduce EMEA staff by 1,000, spokesperson Ciara Power told ElectricNews.Net, "The project is being looked at on a country by country basis and there is still no comment about Irish job losses." WorldCom employs 200 people in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway including those at the new data centre. The 60,000 square foot data centre provides hosting space and has cost USD35 million.
The 1,000 EMEA layoffs represent 10 percent of its total European workforce and come on top of 6,000 job losses announced earlier this year. The firm's 6,000 previous cuts came in February and mainly affected workers in the US. At the start of the year WorldCom employed around 77,000 globally and it is believed that the redundancies made in the year are designed, in part, to streamline WorldCom as well as its now integrated daughter company UUNET.
Profit before accounting change at the WorldCom Group unit fell to USD503 million, or USD0.16 a share, from USD599 million, or USD0.20, a year ago. The company's net income dropped 21 percent to USD460 million this quarter from USD583 million in the same quarter last year.
WorldCom said that data and Internet services accounted for approximately USD3.1 billion or 56 percent of WorldCom group's revenues, up from 52 percent of revenues in the third quarter of 2000. The company said it still expects revenue growth of between 12 and 15 percent for the full 2001 financial year.
Bernard J. Ebbers, president and chief executive officer of WorldCom, said, "We still expect our growth businesses to gain market share profitably during this period of global economic uncertainty."
The WorldCom group consists of WorldCom's data, Internet, international and commercial voice businesses. Its sister company, the MCI Group, consists of WorldCom's consumer, small business and wholesale long distance business. MCI Group released its earnings separately today, showing net income down 91 percent.
WorldCom is at http://www.worldcom.com.
|
