French-American Alcatel-Lucent group is going to lay off 564 Romanian employees in a programme intended to cut or outsource over 4,500 positions in Europe this year and next year, Mediafax informs. A total of 458 jobs will be outsourced in Romania and 184 in Germany. In France, Alcatel–Lucent will outsource 150 positions and will give the Alcatel IT division together with 210 workers to American company Hewlett-Packard. ‘Compared to the end of last year, one in six jobs will go in Europe this year. More than 4,500 jobs will be removed or their tasks will be outsourced. In countries like France, where plans are more comprehensive, the restructuring process will take more time,’ said Philippe Saint-Aubin, Secretary of the European Committee for Information and Dialogue of Alcatel-Lucent. The group started several resizing programmes in 2006, the year when the French Alcatel group merged into the US Lucent Technologies group. The latest series of layoffs in December 2008 affected 1,000 employees.
