This
week’s international news
Telecoms
giant cuts losses by losing staff
The
telecoms giant Lucent, formerly known as AT&T International, is axing 10
per cent of its employees after revealing first-half losses of £696m. It made a
£734bn profit in the same period the previous year. Chief executive Richard
McGinn claimed restructuring would cost up to £1.09 billion but would
"serve as the foundation for putting Lucent back on track".
UN
paints gloomy picture for world employment
The
global employment picture remains "deeply flawed" according to early
findings of the UN’s World Employment Report 2001. It claims that the global
economy will at least have to maintain its current pace of expansion in order
to generate the 500 million new jobs needed during the next decade. Despite
improvements in the labour market in industrialised countries and the potential
of IT to create jobs, one-third of the world’s workforce of 3 billion people
are unemployed or underemployed. www.ilo-london.org.uk
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BP
Amoco to sever connection to 5,000 stations
BP
Amoco is to save an estimated £1bn by closing down or ending supply contracts
with 5,000 petrol stations worldwide. It is estimated that 3,000 jobs will
lost. Most of the stations are in the US where two recent acquisitions ñ Amoco
and Arco ñ are being integrated into the group. Only 12 stations in the UK
would be affected by the cuts. The cutbacks follow BP’s £79bn spending spree
bringing Amoco, Arco and Burmah Castrol within the group.
