Nortel Networks on Feb. 25 announced it will reduce its worldwide workforce by 10% or 3,200 positions over the coming months, as it restructures under bankruptcy protection.
The job cuts are in addition to 1,800 remaining reductions previously announced, the once-mighty telecommunications equipment maker said.
"Nortel is a company driven by people and innovation," president and chief executive Mike Zafirovski said. "But with the unprecedented economic environment and resultant impacts on revenues, significant changes are required to regain our financial footing."
Once Canada's largest company, Nortel has been struggling since the dot-com collapse and a shifting of the telecommunications landscape.
The company, still one of the world's biggest telecom equipment makers, filed for bankruptcy in mid-January after its reorganization plan, begun in 2005, ran into problems.
Nortel, which does business in 150 countries and has some 30,000 employees, traces its history back to 1882 as the mechanical department of Bell Telephone Canada. It was later known as Northern Electric and Northern Telecom before changing its name in 1999 to Nortel Networks Corporation.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009
