Jobs fears raised over Nortel sale proposals

The proposed sale of Nortel Network's remaining manufacturing plants, including the Monkstown plant in Northern Ireland, has caused concern over hundreds of manufacturing jobs at the plant.

Nortel Networks announced today that the Canadian-owned company was in discussions with Flextronics to divest about $500 million worth of "manufacturing and inventory assets".

If the deal goes ahead, Singapore-based Flextronics would acquire most of Nortel's manufacturing capacity at plants in Northern Ireland, France, Brazil and Canada.

It is feared that up to 350 jobs at the Monkstown plant, which makes high-tech telecommunications equipment, may be affected.

In a statement today, the company said over the last five years it had divested most of its manufacturing activities to electronic manufacturing service suppliers - a strategy had enabled the company to tap into new manufacturing technologies and to quickly meet changing market needs.

Nortel Networks said it intended to retain in-house all strategic management and overall control responsibilities associated with the company’s various supply chains, but on successful completion of discussions with Flextronics up to 2,500 employees are likely to affect worldwide.

Declining to give further details, the company stated it was "premature to discuss any details of the discussions or the potential effects of this initiative on employees".

(SP)