Alcatel-Lucent cuts 4,000 jobs after loss

PARIS, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- U.S.-French telecommunications-equipment giant Alcatel-Lucent SA said Wednesday it would cut 4,000 jobs after reporting a $373 million third-quarter loss.

Chief Executive Officer Patricia Russo promised the job cuts -- on top of 12,500 announced in February -- would save the company $578 million by 2009.

Russo would not specify where the job cuts would take place.

The combined cuts amount to 20 percent of the 82,500 employees Alcatel SA of Paris and Lucent Technologies Inc. Murray Hill, N.J., had when they combined last December.

Russo also said she was replacing Chief Financial Officer Jean-Pascal Beaufret with enterprise division head Hubert De Pesquidoux.

Beaufret is stepping down to "pursue other opportunities," the company said.

In a broader restructuring, the company also streamlined its regional structure and cut its senior management team to seven executives from 21, Russo said.

Alcatel-Lucent's share price -- which rose nearly 3 percent on the news -- has nosedived more than 39 percent on three straight quarterly losses that erased about $12 billion in market capitalization, roughly akin to Lucent's value before the merger.

Union workers in France staged a one-hour strike to protest the layoff plans.