LUCENT FEATURE: The telecommunications industry has been particularly badly hit by the stock market crash. Here BILL CALTHROP looks at the position faced by Lucent Technologies, one of the leaders in the field, with five plants in Swindon and others in Wiltshire.

Lucent Technologies is a giant among giants in the telecoms industry, and like Motorola, Intel, Zarlink, Cable and Wireless and others, make a huge contribution not just to the local economy, but to the community as whole.

But, without exception, they have been faced with having to make tough decisions on manpower levels and the structure of their operations, which stretch to the four corners of the earth.

The sudden collapse of the telecommunications market, fuelled by a massive drop in sales of mobile phones, which featured heavily in investment, particularly Third Generation Broadband development, forced companies to rapidly re-draw the way they operate.

Lucent Technologies has been no exception as it struggles to come to terms with the new order and consultations are underway with Swindon workforce with regard to job losses.

This followed the company's decision in April to cut a further 6,000 jobs globally, on top of the 10,000 job cuts announced last October and twice that figure earlier on.

The immediate effect was the closure of the company's optical networking site in Malmesbury, which included its Bell Laboratories division and employed about 750 people, and another site in Chippenham, housing its financial control office and employing about 70 people, mostly involved in administration and research and development.

While much of the work being carried out at these sites was moved elsewhere, job losses were inevitable and the figure for the UK, mostly in Wiltshire, was put at about 500.

It is discussion and consultation about these positions still going on.

The total number employed in the UK is about 2,000, most in Swindon.

With headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Lucent has about 56,000 employees worldwide, but this will fall to 45,000 by the end of the year.

But it hasn't all been bad news.

One of several significant breakthroughs for Lucent, a world leader in Third Generation (3G) telecommunications technology, was the successful transmission of voice calls.

And earlier this month Lucent was chosen by British Telecommunications to provide general network support and services for its UK network infrastructure as part of a five-year contract.

Under the terms of the contract, which has a potential value of more than $50 million, Lucent will provide support for several different components of BT's network, including optical, IP, voice and data switching elements.