Swedish telecom power Ericsson, trying to restore investor confidence after a profit warning last month, said Monday it would cut its work force by about 11 percent -- more than 11,000 people -- over the next two years.
The move shows Ericsson turning away from traditional fixed telephone networks, where demand is declining, to focus on expanding markets such as mobile phones and wireless communications.
In December, Ericsson said fourth-quarter earnings would be 15 to 20 percent below expectations and 1999 results would fail to meet a long-term growth target of over 20 percent sales growth.
Earlier this month, Ericsson's US rival Motorola said it would increase its planned job cuts to 18,000 from the 15,000 it announced last summer. By mid-1999, savings from the restructuring were expected to reach $1 billion.
"What may be a surprise is ... [Ericsson's] time frame, that it's going to take place within two years," said Kurt Forsberg, an analyst at brokerage Aros. "You can compare with Motorola, who said they would cut 18,000 jobs and had finished with 17,000 at the time of the full-year earnings."
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More Microsoft: In a move to make its stock more affordable, Microsoft said on Monday it wanted to execute a two-for-one stock split. If shareholders give the thumbs up, as expected, they will receive one additional share for every share held on 12 March.
At the end of 1998, Microsoft had about 2.5 billion common shares outstanding. A split would boost that number to 5 billion.
Reuters contributed to this report.
