Alcatel-Lucent plans to cut 10,000 jobs: reports

Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent reportedly plans to reduce its staff by 10,000 as part of a cost-cutting drive to save €1 billion (A$1.4 billion) by 2015.

Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes.

The group, which employs 72,000 staff worldwide, will axe 15,000 posts but create 5000 new jobs, the Les Echos and Le Figaro newspapers reported.

The company intends to cut 900 net posts in France, or roughly 10 percent of the domestic workforce, as well as closing sites at Rennes and Toulouse, and selling plants at Eu and Ormes.

The cuts will reportedly hit all regions, with 4100 planned in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 3800 in Asia, and 2100 in the Americas.

A spokeswoman for Alcatel-Lucent declined to comment.

The cuts are part of an effort by Michel Combes, who took the helm of Alcatel-Lucent in April, to streamline the company to focus on fewer products so as to reverse losses.

The group, which competes with larger rivals Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia, has posted five straight quarters of net losses.

Last year it swung to a net loss of €1.2 billion  - the biggest since 2008 - largely because of a writedown on its mobile unit and restructuring costs from an earlier plan to lay off 5000 workers.

Combes, who used to run telecom giant Vodafone's European businesses, is the third CEO to try to right Alcatel. He said in June when announcing his turnaround plan, which also calls for €1 billion of unspecified asset sales by 2015, that the group needed to bring its cost structure in line with peers.

The layoff plan is the latest in a series at Alcatel-Lucent. In autumn 2012, it announced moves to trim 5000 workers from its base of 76,000 at the time, with the heaviest burden falling in France.