Published: Wednesday, 27th January, 2010 5:30pm

Athlone workers' relief after false reports of Ericsson job cuts

Workers in Athlone's Ericsson can breath a sigh of relief as the company confirmed that reports of further jobs cuts are incorrect.

On Monday, it was reported worldwide that Ericsson was to make a further 1,500 job cuts after the telecom giant's Q4 report for 2009 was released.

However, a spokesperson in the Swedish headquarters yesterday confirmed to the Westmeath Independent that the 1,500 redundancies was a "misunderstanding" and actually referred to a branch in Sweden which was closed in December.

She said that there were "no additional" job losses announced for this year. A second spokesperson, based in the UK, also confirmed this and said that the only closure between Ireland and the UK was the Coventry plant last November.

In February of last year, the company announced 5,000 redundancies as part of a massive restructuring operation. Athlone escaped the cuts, however 300 jobs were lost at its research and development section in Clonskeagh, Dublin. Because Ericsson were "ahead of schedule" by making those redundancies, another 1,500 redundancies were made in Sweden in December, added the spokesperson.

Profits at the telecoms group dropped by 92% in the fourth quarter. The company blamed the poor performance on the slow transition of customers from telephone to broadband and said that the payoff from investments in mobile broadband and high speed networks had not yet materialised.

Chief executive Hans Vestberg said Ericsson held on to market share across the board and would focus on growing faster than the sector in 2010.

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