Lucent Posts $7.9 Billion Loss, Slashes 7,000 Jobs

Lucent, which counted 155,000 employees at its peak in July 2000, will have cut 70 percent of its work force with the current round of layoffs. Almost 50,000 of those workers departed during the spin-offs of Agere Systems and Avaya and the sale of Lucent's optical fiber business.

It was Lucent's ninth-straight money-losing quarter. The quarterly loss compares with a loss of $3.2 billion a year earlier.

CEO Pat Russo says Lucent thought it hit bottom six months ago and that telecommunications companies would start buying Lucent switches and networking equipment again. But "like many others, we were wrong."

"The level of spending has pulled back even further," Russo says.

Lucent's equipment sales declined 42 percent in the United States and 52 percent elsewhere.

D'Amelio says there will be even more jobs in the fourth quarter. The latest cuts amount to 13 percent of Lucent's current work force of 53,000.

Lucent tumbled almost 19 percent, to $1.71, in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Russo says Lucent continues to expect to start making a profit again in late fiscal 2003.

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