Alcatel-Lucent will ultimately fire 12,500 employees, 3,500 more than planned at the time of the merger. The new figure was revealed after the results of the company were known, which accumulated losses in the last quarter of the year in the order of 618 million euros, compared to a profit of 318 million euros in the same period last year.
The announcement was made by the company’s president, PatrĂcia Russo, who considered the move inevitable, given the company’s «disappointing results» in the last quarter of 2006, the first in which the merger with Lucent was operational.
When the merger was announced, Alcatel estimated that the 9,000 redundancies would allow savings of 1.4 billion euros, supposedly necessary to ensure the operational efficiency of the new company, which has 80,000 employees.
The new redundancy plan now aims to cut 16 percent of the workforce and will allow savings of 1.7 billion euros over three years.
Alcatel and Lucent announced the merger in May last year. The conclusion of the deal and the start of operations of the new joint entity became operational in December this year. For 2007, the estimates presented by the company point to an increase in revenues of around 5 percent.
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