Ericsson to cut 4,000 jobs globally this summer

Ericsson in Sweden
Telecom network maker Ericsson may cut between 3,000 and 4,000 jobs during this summer to improve profit, according to a report by Svenska Dagbladet.

The Swedish company declined to comment on the report, but said it was on track to reach previously announced annual cost savings of SEK9 billion or $1.1 billion by 2017 compared with 2014 levels.

“This program is on track but more remains to be done before the program is completed,” Ericsson said in an emailed statement on Tuesday and repeated it was adjusting its operations to currently low mobile broadband project volumes.

Ericsson on April 21 announced that it would be implementing structural changes to accelerate strategy execution and drive efficiency and growth even harder across the company.

Ericsson had a total number of employee base of 115,300 at the end of the first quarter, according to its latest report, down from roughly 116,300 at the end of last year.

In March 2015, the company made 2,200 redundancies in Sweden, mainly in R&D and supply, as part of cost-cutting.

Rival Nokia aims to cut between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs. Nokia, which employs 104,000 staff, is cutting job following its merger with Alcatel-Lucent and due to challenging conditions in the telecom market and technology shifts.

The job cut at Ericsson indicates that the telecom network vendor is yet to stabilise its business relationships with top mobile operators and enhance revenue.