Ericsson 'regrets' cuts as more than 100 of its Irish staff lose their jobs
The Swedish company is facing falling sales and tough competition.
SWEDISH TECH AND communications giant Ericsson has announced that it will cut over 100 staff across its Irish operations.
The company said in a statement that it as part of its ‘global restructuring programme’, “Ericsson has announced a reduction of around 130 employees from its offices in Ireland”.
It said that this is “to ensure a competitive business model aimed at securing long-term growth and linked to the technology needs of our customers”.
The firm said that it remains committed to research and development in Ireland “and will continue to employ over 1,200 people in our Athlone and Dublin campuses”.
“Ericsson regrets the impact of today’s announcement on our employees and will be providing a comprehensive support programme to affected employees,” it said.
The cut to its Irish operations come after Ericsson’s new CEO, Börje Ekholm, announced in August a plan to cut jobs across the company.
Restructuring
This came after the firm announced a loss of more than 1.2 billion Swedish Krona (€130 million) during its second quarter, which compared unfavorably to a profit of SEK 2.2 billion during the same period last year.
Ericsson is facing more serious competition from China’s Huawei and Finland’s Nokia, as well as falling sales in many countries.
It is now scaling back in many of its weaker markets. Its biggest markets are in Europe and Latin America.
The company is cutting thousands of staff across its global operations as it looks to make big savings.
It has already cut 7,000 jobs in the past year, most of them in North America. In December, it announced that it was cutting 59 jobs in its Dublin operations.
