Nortel axe falls on 330 UK jobs

Nortel's plans to cut another 10,000 jobs globally will mean 330 losses at its Monkstown factory in Northern Ireland, the fourth lot of cuts at the telecoms components plant this year.

The company, which is laying off nearly a third of its 94,000 workforce, has been hit heavily by a downturn in the demand for telecoms equipment.

Earlier this month, Nortel reported a massive three-month loss of $19.2bn following one-time restructuring costs. The firm said at the time that it would cut a further 10,000 jobs and drop digital subscriber line equipment manufacturing. It had already announced job cuts of 20,000 earlier in the year.

At Monkstown, the only UK site hit by the cuts, the jobs will go in the systems house area of operations, reducing the work force to 1600 by September, down 800 on January.