Ericsson & Bose Announce Job Losses

Tech job cuts continue to spread throughout the industry, with both Ericsson and Bose today announcing significant staff losses.  Ericsson has revealed plans to axe 5,000 jobs, despite making a stronger-than-expected profit of $1.1 billion in the last quarter, excluding restructuring costs, and has worried investors by withholding any business outlook for the new financial year.  Meanwhile Bose is cutting 10-percent of its workforce, amounting to 1,000 jobs, claiming to have been "staffed for a growing economy, not a global recession".

Bose makes an estimated $2bn per year in sales, but has declined to give much detail about the restructuring and its deeper motivations.  Spokeswoman Carolyn Cinotti released a statement suggesting that "as a global company, we are responding to these [recession] challenges", confirming only that redundancies would affect Bose's head-office as well as "select areas, including manufacturing."

Ericsson, meanwhile, have highlighted the fact that all divisions but their Sony Ericsson partnership have been successful, with some areas such as infrastructure hardly affected by the economic climate.  Operating margins improved, aside from Sony Ericsson which saw a $339 million Q4 pretax loss, and Chief Executive Carl-Henric Svanberg  said that Ericsson is "the only vendor [in the segment] that has positive net cash, and that is a strategic asset."