|
Throughout this year the company has slashed its workforce and its global employment figures have fallen from 107,200 in March to just 90,000 at the start of October.
According to the Irish Times the struggling telecoms equipment maker, which cut 100 jobs in Ireland in June, is believed to be preparing to cut between 100 and 200 additional jobs here. Ericsson employs 2,400 in Ireland and the newspaper said its management is expected to brief staff on Friday or early next week regarding the cuts.
Last month an Ericsson spokesperson in the UK confirmed to ElectricNews.Net that the company's operations in Ireland and in Britain would be merged into a single business unit.
At the time the spokesperson said that the impact of the reshuffle was unknown and that the reorganisation would be a slow process. It later became clear that the rationalisation inside Ericsson would see the company regroup its Irish and UK operations under a single Northern European banner, with each territory retaining its own country manager.
In late October, Ericsson lost its chairman Lars Ramqvist, who is to be replaced by Michael Treschow as chairman of the board. Treschow joins Ericsson from Electrolux, where he earned a reputation as a successful and aggressive cost cutter. Treschow, also called "Mike the knife" due to his cost cutting success and reputation, has been chief executive officer at Electrolux since 1997.
Also in October, Ericsson posted a worse than expected third quarter loss of SEK5.8 billion, far worse than analysts' expectations of around SEK4.5 billion.
The company's cost cutting and job cutting measures thus far are expected to save SEK7 billion this year alone. With the slumping demand for mobile phones and telecoms equipment, the two biggest divisions of Ericsson, the company has been forced to find as many avenues as possible to cut costs and boost demand.
Earlier in the year, Ericsson spun off its handset division into a joint venture with Japan's consumer electronics firm Sony. Sony-Ericsson mobile communications, which is based in London, launched in October and is expected to represent significant competition for the market leader Nokia.
|
