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Nortel cutting staff
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January 11, 2001: 3:44 p.m. ET
Company says 4,000 jobs will be eliminated in the near term
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Clarifying earlier press reports, Nortel Networks Corp., the leading fiber-optic networking equipment, said it plans to lay off about 4,000 full-time employees in the near term but expects to finish 2001 with the same number of employees it had last year.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Nortel said that while it expects to continue to hire in 2001 to focus on high-growth markets, it will eliminate 4,000 regular full-time positions "through streamlining and realignment activities."
The layoffs will be made over the course of the next six months, a Nortel spokesman said.
On balance, the company said it expects its overall number of employees to remain at approximately 94,500 this year, the same number it had in 2000.
"In 2000, we added critical resources to further enhance our responsiveness to customers and laser-like focus on the high-growth areas of their businesses, where demand is most robust," Clarence Chandran, Nortel's chief operating officer, said in the statement. "In 2001, hiring to address high-growth markets will remain a priority."
Nortel spokesman Andy Lark said the first round of layoffs include 750 jobs in Ottawa and another 200 in Toronto. The job reductions are in poorly-performing parts of the company, and will be offset by new positions created in the fiber-optics or wireless networks units, Lark said.
 "We are not engaging in any wholesale layoffs or reductions in our workforce," Lark said. "The overall number of employees will remain flat" in 2001.
Earlier in the day, the Toronto Globe and Mail, citing unidentified industry sources, reported that the company had planned to lay off at least 5,200 employed.
The job cuts are part of Nortel's plan to shift from traditional voice telecom switching products to the data side of telecommunications.
Nortel (NT: Research, Estimates) stock has been dropping steadily in recent months, plunging 63 percent from its 52-week high of $86 on the New York Stock Exchange amid worries about its revenue outlook and overall tech sector weakness.
Shares were up $1.38, or 4.3 percent, at $33.31 in afternoon trading Thursday.
The company also trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, where it accounts for about 18 percent of the value of the exchange's 300 Index.
Nortel is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter financial results Jan. 18. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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Nortel Networks
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