Motorola's latest round of job cuts may be relatively small, less than 20 per cent of its global workforce, but they are symptomatic of the crisis facing the telecommunications sector.

While some may take comfort at the small numbers involved, it is small consolation to those losing their jobs, people who had thought that the tide had turned and the worst was over.

Indeed, it has been difficult to see a break in the depression enveloping the sector generally. There has been enormous contraction in the past year as demand for product has shrunk dramatically, followed by wholesale job losses.

Few of the major players, Cable and Wireless and Lucent Technologies being among them, have escaped the need to make dramatic cuts involving massive restructuring programmes.

So it would be foolish to say that the worst is over for all, although the indication is that for those who plan carefully, and, most importantly, as long as there are no more September 11-type outrages, much of the industry will come through the present downturn all right, albeit a great deal slimmer, but healthier.

The ones that will fail are those who have invested unwisely and do not have the cash reserves to fall back on to enable them to tread water for the next 12 months.

And there have been signs that the industry no doubt due to the belt-tightening, they will claim can see light at the end of the tunnel.

There has been renewed interest in telecom shares as investors cautiously show confidence in an industry that for many was a veritable gold mine for more than two decades as the micro-processors became more efficient and smaller, and were used in an increasing number of items over a vastly wider spectrum of technology than its inventors could ever have dreamt of.

It all had to come down to earth.

But when the bubble finally burst following a massive decline in demand, particularly in mobile phones, the suddenness and the scale caught investor, customer and manufacturer almost totally by surprise.

The unthinkable followed.

There were massive job losses by such household names as Motorola, Marconi, Cable and Wireless, Lucent Technologies, Ericsson as well as their global networks of suppliers and distributors.

In an industry that tended to be management heavy, non-core business were outsourced or dispensed with as frantic moves were made to restructure often giant corporations to smaller and more manageable proportions.

It has, to say the least, been a painful time for an industry that has seen so much success.

So has the tide turned?

Certainly those involved would have us believe so.

It would nice to think so, but I have my doubts. I think we are in for a few shocks.

However, in the long run the result will be more runners than fallers.