Alcatel-Lucent set to slash a further 10,000 jobs

Alcatel-Lucent has announced plans to cut a further 10,000 jobs by the end of 2015 as it seeks to slash costs by €1 billion (US$1.4 billion) per year.

The cuts represent about 14 per cent of the total workforce of 72,000 employees.

All geographic areas where Alcatel-Lucent operates will see job losses, with the reduction of 4,100 positions in Europe, Middle East and Africa, 3,800 in Asia Pacific and 2,100 in the Americas.

The job losses are deeper than would initially appear, with a union claiming that 15,000 jobs are expected to be cut, but the company then expects to hire 5,000 staff in different roles, leading to the net loss of 10,000 staff.

The company said that it would be reallocating R&D investment to next-generation technologies that should represent 85 per cent of R&D spend in 2015, as opposed to 65 per cent today.

It will also be reducing R&D spend in legacy technologies by 60 per cent, and reducing administrative, sales and support functions to what it said were industry standards.

The latest round of job cuts is in addition to the 5,000 losses announced in July.

Business activities in France dealing with service providers will be concentrated in two main sites – Villarceaux, south of Paris, which will become Alcatel-Lucent’s primary R&D centre in Europe and one of the world’s largest R&D campuses, and Lannion, which will specialise in ultra-broadband mobile access and subscriber data management (SDM) technologies.