Telecom Firm Marconi to Cut 4,000 More Jobs Worldwide

British telecommunications equipment maker Marconi announced Wednesday that it expects to cut 4,000 more jobs from its worldwide work force.

The new cuts are in addition to 4,000 jobs lost since April.

The London-based company said sales for the current financial year were likely to fall by 15%, while operating profits could be halved.

It said that loss excludes Marconi’s U.S.-based Marconi Medical Systems, which Dutch company Philips Electronics said Wednesday it will buy for $1.1 billion in cash.

Marconi said firms were delaying purchases as they felt the pinch from the global economic slowdown.

Marconi predicted as recently as May that revenue would grow this year, and that it would escape the economic slowdown in the U.S. “The biggest difference has been a significant falloff in orders in Europe,” Chief Executive George Simpson said on a conference call.

Earnings in the telecommunications equipment industry have collapsed as debt-laden phone companies reduced purchases. Last month, Nortel Networks Corp. said the market is falling at an “alarming rate.” Rivals have cut forecasts.

“What’s hitting Marconi has already hit most of its main competitors over the past three months,” said Eric Burkel, an analyst at Global Equities in Paris. “There’s a severe slowdown in spending on infrastructure by operators.”

He said he expects Marconi’s shares to drop 12% to 20% when they resume trading today, adding that he doesn’t expect the market to pick up for six to nine months.

The company, which employs about 50,000 people in 19 countries, said the new job losses were part of a cost-cutting plan, and that 1,000 of the cuts would be in management.

Marconi’s board had asked the London Stock Exchange to suspend trading of its shares earlier in the day and said it needed to “consider current trading and the outlook for the rest of the year,” triggering expectations of the job cut announcement, which followed in the evening.

Marconi requested that trading be resumed today.

Marconi, which changed its name in 1999 from General Electric Co., has a substantial presence in the U.S. because of its acquisition in 1999 of Cleveland-based Reltec Corp. and Fore Systems Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh.

In April, Marconi announced a restructuring plan that it expected to generate annual cost savings of as much as $280 million by the end of 2003.

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Associated Press and Bloomberg News were used in compiling this report.