Nortel cuts 330 jobs in Northern IrelandMelanie ReynoldsTelecoms company Nortel Networks has announced it is making 330 people redundant at its Monkstown, Northern Ireland, plant.
A consultation period with the Monkstown workforce is being started now. This will reduce the number employed at the site, which makes optical fibre telecoms transmission systems, to 1,600.
The Monkstown job cuts are part of a batch of 10,000 job cuts, announced last week, which the company plans to make in its worldwide workforce.
In all Nortel expects to have cut its total work force by 30,000 during the first nine months of this year.
The Canadian company blamed the continuing downturn in the telecommunications industry for the job losses.
Last year the company was rapidly expanding and expected to create 9,600 new jobs in the US, Northern Ireland, Canada, UK, and Australia as part of a $1.9bn expansion plan.
This latest round of redundancies seems to have been prompted by last week’s
announcement that the company expects to make a $19bn loss in the second quarter of the year.