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To: Johnny Canuck who wrote (35177)	11/17/2001 4:21:37 AM
From: Johnny Canuck	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67946

4000 extra jobs likely to go at AT&T By Reuters staff 17 November 2001 Long-distance telephone and cable-television giant AT&T will likely cut over 4,000 more jobs during the next few months in addition to the 9,000 it has already cut, a source close to the situation said on Friday. Including the expected additional job cuts, AT&T's work force would be reduced by more than 12 percent from the 125,000 employees it had at the beginning of 2001. AT&T spokeswoman Eileen Connolly declined to comment on the number of additional job cuts AT&T will be making. However, she said, "AT&T is taking many steps to cut expenses and drive costs out of the business to remain competitive in a very challenging industry. "We will look for additional ways to trim costs and will continue to adjust the size of our work force to meet marketplace needs. Some organizations will get smaller, while others, in our growth areas, will expand." The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that AT&T was expected to cut up to 10,000 more jobs over the next few months. The source said, however, that the newspaper's estimate was too high, adding that AT&T's executives have not yet finished reaching decisions about it. "It's probably over (3,000) or 4,000 but somewhere probably under (10,000)," the source said. Steve Mygrant, fund manager for Fifth Third Technology Fund, said he would not be surprised if the number of additional job cuts approached 10,000. "We haven't seen any evidence of an improvement in business conditions that would suggest that they shouldn't be continuing to cut costs pretty aggressively," Mygrant said. "We're not bears on the economy. We just think that things are tough, we'll continue to see weakness in the telecommunications service industry, and that would seem to merit cutting costs." AT&T said last month that it expects to take a fourth-quarter restructuring charge, which would include costs related to additional job cuts. [Harry: This seems to go directly against what the analysts that upgrade the D-WDM and optical component makers yesterday are saying. It appears the RBOC's are still removing cost from their businesses and perhaps as AVCI suggested running their networks beyond their design for capacities in order to contain cost. Despite the upgrades I don't see any change in the guidance most telecom equipment suppliers and related companies gave in October, a recovery in second half 2002, perhaps a late as Q4 2002. Even the TLAB layoffs which some are trying to give a positive spin suggest they expect a protracted down turn. While some excess inventories may have been worked off, they is still a lot of excess capacity out their. This is not the ingredients for pricing traction. As for new equipment, I expect RBOC's to add only as capacitiy is needed at this point and even then only for services they can charge a premium for. It is not like customers have a lot of choice given the failures of many CLEC's.]