Phone equipment maker Lucent predicted an improvement in its business today, after posting smaller 1st quarter losses of $423 million from $464 in the previous quarter.
Lucent, who employ around 1000 people in Ireland, is cutting more than half its global workforce to stem losses of $16 billion in its last fiscal year.
Lucent said it ended the first quarter with 62,000 employees, down from 123,000 a year ago. Chief Financial Officer Frank D'Amelio said on a conference call that the workforce will drop to ``somewhat below'' 55,000 by June as the company fires workers overseas and sells more businesses and factories.
Lucent said today that sales will rise 15% in the coming quarter, and predicts it will break even by the year end.
`They're starting to turn the ship around,'' said Ryan Tansey, an analyst at John Hancock Advisers Inc.
