Slump continues to claim IT jobs

Vendors and distributors announce further staff cuts

Job losses are continuing to hit the IT industry, with both vendors and distributors axing more jobs this month.

Motorola last week said it was shedding another 7,000 jobs, bringing the total number axed by the troubled telecoms company this year to 39,000.

The firm, which reported losses for its fourth consecutive quarter of $1.4bn (£1bn), including restructuring and other charges, said that 4,000 jobs will be lost by selling off various parts of its business, and the other 3,000 from attrition.

Sun Microsystems axed 3,900 jobs and issued further profit warnings. Before the 11 September attacks on the US the company had warned that it would need an exceptional September if it was to meet its targets.

"Our business nearly ground to a halt in the two weeks after that tragic day," said Michael Lehman, Sun's chief financial officer.

The company said it now expected to record a $500m charge in the second quarter as a result of the job cuts, and that it couldn't predict when it would make up on missed sales.

In the UK, the distribution channel was hit when networking distributor Allasso said it would cut "less than 10 staff" by the end of October.

Allasso's holding company, Articon-Integralis, is cutting about 90 employees from a total of 741 staff. This means Allasso will lose 22 employees across its five European offices.

Bernie Dodwell, managing director of Allasso in the UK, said: "With the general downturn, the cost base we had developed in anticipation of growth did not materialise."

Storage distributor Ideal Hardware this month announced 21 job cuts in its sales and products division, also citing the downturn. This followed the announcement by its parent firm, Bell Microproducts, that it would report losses of $3.3m for its third quarter 2001.