Lucent Technologies Inc. is planning to cut an additional 7,000 employees by the end of the year after reporting on Tuesday a quarterly net loss of $7.91 billion.
The third fiscal quarter net loss is more than double that of a year earlier when the Murray Hill, N.J., networking company reported a net loss of $3.24 billion.
Revenues for the quarter, ended June 30, also fell by half. They were $2.95 billion compared with $5.89 billion in the same period a year ago.
Most of the 7,000 cuts will be completed by Dec. 31, the company said. Lucent had 53,000 employees at the end of the quarter. The company took a charge of $808 million in the third fiscal quarter for the restructuring of the business.
Lucent is blaming its earnings woes and continued cutbacks on a longer-than-expected slowdown in demand from its carriers and service provider customers. Also hurting earnings for the quarter was a large $5.83 billion noncash charge to defer a tax benefit.
“The market continues to be very challenging,” said Lucents Chief Executive Officer Patricia Russo, in a statement. “Capital spending constraints have intensified and remained in place much longer than anyone would have predicted.”
Lucent continues to target late fiscal 2003 for a return to profitability.
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