Lucent offers early retirement to 10,000

Lucent Technologies is offering voluntary buyouts or early retirement to more than 10,000 US managers as part of the struggling telco's accelerated restructuring efforts.

According to company spokesman Bill Price, the employees targeted for the offer, mostly middle-level managers and a small percentage of non-union clerical workers, were being notified on Wednesday by their supervisors. All of the employees are either eligible or nearly eligible for a pension.

"The voluntary offer is part of our effort to accelerate the restructuring because the market for Lucent's fibre optic and communications gear has softened," said Price.

Eligible employees will receive a formal buyout offer next Monday and will have until 10 July to respond. Under the offer, staff will be eligible to retire with a full pension if they have at least 15 years of service behind them and are aged 50 or older. Lucent expects a "significant" number to accept the retirement plan.

The offer seems to answer a concern of analysts who had argued that Lucent needed to cut at least 10,000 jobs beyond the 16,000 announced in January. The company had 104,000 worldwide workers as of March.

Steven Levy, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, explained that the latest move is another step in lowering Lucent's cost structure. "So that's a positive thing," he said.

Lucent said it remains "confident" in its restructuring plan and is accelerating its cost reduction efforts. The company recently terminated merger talks with France's Alcatel that would have formed a global telecoms equipment giant.

The announcement comes a day after Lucent said it will meet earnings expectations for the current quarter despite lower spending on telecoms equipment by customers.