Another round of high-tech job cuts is looming in Northern Ireland and the Republic following Nortel Network's decision to cut a further 20,000 jobs worldwide. A spokesman for the Canadian group said no regional breakdown was yet available. Nortel's 1,250 workers in Northern Ireland and its 600 staff in the South face an anxious wait of up to 10 days before full details of the next round of job cuts are made public.
The telecoms giant expects to post a net loss of $3.6 billion for the third quarter and intends to take further steps to adjust its business to the global telecom market. Nortel said yesterday it planned to reduce its worldwide workforce to 45,000 people and sell off non-core businesses which employ a further 10,000 people. As part of this it has agreed to sell a proportion of its manufacturing division to C-MAC, a Montreal-based firm. C-MAC, which has plants in Northern Ireland and the US, will continue to supply Nortel with systems integration, configuration and testing services. Around 30 of Nortel's staff in the North will now transfer over to C-MAC in Carrickfergus.
At the start of the year Nortel employed 95,000 people worldwide, and had earmarked 30,000 for redundancy in a series of restructuring programmes. Union leaders in the North said they had no advance indication from Nortel that further jobs might be on the line.
The group's Monkstown plant in Belfast has already suffered four redundancy programmes this year. The largest was in June with 330 job losses announced. Employee numbers have fallen from a high of 2,400 to 1,250 in the North. Most jobs have gone from Nortel's system house in Northern Ireland.
Yesterday's news came as no shock to staff at Nortel Networks in Galway where 100 jobs have been lost in the past year after the last rationalisation. Nortel now has 750 to 800 staff at its optical systems manufacturing plant in Galway at any one time. Nortel Ireland's Shannon operations are small following redundancies flagged last July.
A Co Antrim-based firm added to the North's gloomy economic outlook yesterday when it announced plans to axe 90 jobs in Lisburn. EM Solutions, which will continue to employ 470 people at its plant, said it was forced to make job cuts because of the downturn in its global market.
The Irish operations of French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel, which has about 180 staff in the Republic, will not be hit by 3,000 jobs cuts announced yesterday, the firm said.
