Swingeing job cuts loom for Alcatel-Lucent workers across all regions as the company reveals plans to halve the number of its business hubs globally by 2015 with the loss of around 10,000 jobs worldwide.
All geographic areas where Alcatel-Lucent operates will be hit, with the loss of 4,100 positions in EMEA, 3,800 in Asia Pacific and 2,100 in the Americas.
Sweeping job cuts are the price to pay for ensuring a 'sustainable financial future and a successful transformation of the company', said the firm, which is repositioning as a specialist in the next generation technologies of IP networking, cloud and ultra-broadband access.
Alcatel-Lucent has committed to achieve fixed cost savings of 1bn euro, or more than 15% of fixed costs by the end of 2015.
The vendor informed its European works council (ECID) of the actions planned as part of The Shift Plan announced on June 19th by its new Chief Executive Officer, Michel Combes.
The Shift Plan also aims to restore profitability to the company, being based on a transformation of Alcatel-Lucent's R&D activities for greater efficiency and a reallocation of resources to focus on future technologies while making a significant reduction of fixed costs.
This will be achieved by reallocating R&D investment to next-generation technologies which should represent 85% of R&D spend in 2015, as opposed to 65% today; reducing R&D spend in legacy technologies by 60%; and reducing administrative, sales and support functions to bring SG&A costs in line with industry standards.
Combes said : "We launched The Shift Plan in June to give Alcatel-Lucent an industrially sustainable future. The strategic choices we made have been validated by our customers.
"To carry out this plan we must make difficult decisions and we will make them with open and transparent dialogue with our employees and their representatives. The Shift Plan is about the company regaining control of its destiny."