1,000 Jobs Cuts Coming in Enterprise

By Mark Evans | Published: August 10, 2009

While Mike Zafirovski’s departure as Nortel’s CEO captured the spotlight today, there’s also big news from the enterprise business.

Joel Hackney, who heads up the enterprise business (at least for now given Mike Z. has left the house) said in a Webcast today that 1,000 enterprise jobs will be slashed by the end of Q3 so the business can “meet our target of becoming profitable by Q4″.

None of the 1,500 employees within Nortel Government Services will be affect, which means the 1,000 cuts will come from the 6,400 employees within the rest of the enterprise business.


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  • GoProto

    If they really want to meet that 4th quarter target the first job to be slashed, er I mean hacked should be his, since he was placed in his position due to anything but merit and all about cronyism. Replace him, and Enterprise will have a shot at becoming profitable.

  • GoProto

    Plus, as an added advantage, they'll need less security in the parking lot.

  • wasthere

    Putting Nortel and profitable in the same sentence ! This guy will kidd us to the door !

  • less

    My maths gotten shaky from disuse – 15% cuts are only half of 30%, Nortel's patented Magic Number (yep, you wanna use “30%” you're gonna have to pay Nortel soon).

  • Meridian

    I listen to Joel say this today and I thought – what was the point ? In 5 weeks we will likely have a new owner. They will quickly form an opinion of how many staff they may want to take and how many they will leave with Nortel to let go with no severance. Why is Joel wasting everyone's time and putting them thru round 27 of layoffs…. unless he is directly doing it on Avaya's behalf…. no that would be unethical in chapter 11 auctions. Maybe the new owner wants everyone…. (i know – wishful thinking —- but I don't think it is Joel's decision to make).

  • forgive

    Joel will get a VP position at Avaya for sure. Just like Rickard Lowe.

    He is on Avaya's behalf to implement this $0 cost of staff reduction plan.

  • scalppeeler

    Holy Sponge Bob.
    What is that 15 to 20 percent.
    Death by a thousand cuts.
    Seems to be a pattern emerging here.
    Wireless may cut 20 percent, Now Enterprise.
    I guess that tells you all you need to know about MEN and CVAS when they go.
    I wonder how many of the job cuts will be in Canada.
    That will be very interesting.
    Same with the cuts from all the other lines of businesses or about to be sold.
    Send your regards to harpo, mcguinea, john manley, mike, flaherty, clement,and any others I probably missed.
    Well Done Canada.
    How will nortel management decide who stays and who goes?

  • ntpurgatory

    Rumor is that this Wednesday will be a big Enterprise cut day…

  • forgive

    15% is not that bad. there are still 85% survived to land a new job.

  • Nortel watcher

    If the job cuts are focusing on Enterprise, then what about the other business units like CVAS – are they off the hook until a bidder emerges too?

  • 4merEmployee22

    I really don't get it?

    So, the business can meet their target by becoming profitable by Q4
    by doing a job cut of 1,000! Profit is directly proportional to job cuts???
    Why were the 1,000 heads hired in the first place?

  • The psychiatrist

    It's simple

    Avaya has instructed the clowns running Nortel Enterrpise to lay of those 1000 employees before they pick up that unit from Nortel,this way those 1000 employees are axed without severance and benefits that Avaya might have been on the hook for.

    Joel the Hack will have no problem hacking those 1000 employees if it means GEtting reassurance of employment under the Avaya name.

  • scalppeeler

    Coming through for you.
    That's what GE people do.

  • felixmk

    I am sure he checked with potential new owners.

  • gone2moro

    Ha ha ha ha.. “profitable in Q4″ oh crap i haven't laughed that hard in awhile.
    Who's doin his books.. Frank Dunn. He he he.

    The Mrs. Hackster must love going to bed with a person dressed in a clown suit. Wonder if he's this funny at the dinner table.

    I'm sorry for ya'll. From experience the best thing that will happen to you will be to get laid off. It wil be hard for a brief period of your life, but you will have more respect for yourselves, your families will see a better person, you will love your employer. Whether you believe it or not any where else is indeed better. I certainly didn't believe it until my turn came last fall.

    Good luck to all ya'll.

  • tiredofitall

    Perhaps we can get Patrick Kane to replace him, he really Hackneyed that taxi driver the other day. I'd say he's the natural replacement.

  • NortelTragedy

    Hackney doesn't know any better … he believes that people are ignorant and actually believes that 1,000 cuts will mean profitability and that Hackney knows what he's doing.

    Fortunately we know the truth: Avaya wants cuts before they take on the business, Hackney is trying to appease Avaya in hopes of buying some time as a “senior executive” for Avaya in a post-transitional phase, and Hackney is really the ignorant one, breathing his own exhaust, realizing that he has little future hopes as a CXO of any Fortune company.

  • horace_grimswold

    “We bring good things to death.” That's their motto.

  • despair

    They don't need to layoff for Avaya. Avaya can take who they want and leave the rest. This is just Joel being Joel and trying to save as much money as possible in Q3/Q4 so that he can meet bonus targets as we wrap things up.

    The enterprise Voice side of the business was profitable (data wasn't). If they want to restore profitability, then get us out of bankruptcy so revenue starts to recover again. You don't build a business with cost cuts, you build it with revenue generation. Of course, that little lesson was lost on the GEniuses.

  • longgone

    perhaps clown boy will get the boot on his 1st day at Avaya…..talk about justice, bwahahahahahahaha!!

  • S_O_S_This_is_HMS_Nortel

    You can bet many low level design engineers/RFT will be included in this 1000 tally instead of the metric buffoons that have recently moved over from Global Operations/Quality. Also many customer support facing teams , support directors/VPs and hanger-ons have managed to restructure themselves in a role well protected by their friends in Enterprise.

    I would think the Enterprise folks in Canada are at risk as the power centers for Enterprise are mostly in the states (Santa Clara, RTP, Billerica etc,).

    Good luck to everyone !

  • S_O_S_This_is_HMS_Nortel

    15% is just the start…what makes you think a new ower would take the rest in especially if it's Avaya.

  • stillNT

    Hackney is an incompetent “leader”, useless and ηλίθιος

  • less

    I somehow doubt there will be 15% left and doing what they did.

  • bankrupt_bob

    If “they” could just harness all the “hot air” coming from the death throes of NT, there would no longer be an energy shortage… not sure about the pollution part, though.

  • NortelEmp

    They are doing it now so they don't have to pay severance / termination pay. And yes, JH will get bonuses for doing it. Criminal.

  • less

    Avaya fears getting bitch slapped by him if they do…..

  • Nortel_Employee_2009

    Maybe Hackney and his peons are all part of this upcoming cut. Remember the “Z Man” is no longer there to watch out for him.

    Poor hackney, he must feel exposed.

  • forgive

    Many employees in Enterprise are very lucky.

    A designer with 10 years NT experience, took couple of maternity leaves, doesn't know how to check disk usage. A “senior” billingual PV guy (20 years in NT) doesn't know how to write simple script to extract log. They are still around.

    E///, NOK and RIM are smart enough to know what part of Nortel has gold value, silver value, bronze value and paper value.

    CDMA and LTE has true gold value, their hard work has been awarded.

    CDMA&LTE >> MEN >> Enterprise >> CVAS >> Others

    God bless NT Enterprise.

  • longgone

    I hear he has his way with defenseless young women……can't wait for him to cop an attitude with the wrong person….it's only a matter of time

  • TexasBahr

    Is it just me or does Joel remind you also of Joel Grey in Cabaret, painted white face, painted smile, barking at the audience to “come in and join the Cabaret
    except in this case 'leave the Cabaret/Nortel. I think the German accent is probably appropriate as well.

  • brett5

    The 1000 reduction is to become profitable in the event Enterprise is not purchased by Avaya….to be profitable as a stand alone co. The cutting will stop at that if a PE firm buys the unit, perhaps. If Siemens Enterprise buys it then there might be slightly more cutting. In the end if Avaya does get it, the blood bath will leave 1500 or so – which makes this round of cuts only 1/5 of what could be coming over the rest of the year. Of course, Hackney wouldn't say how many people Avaya plan to keep, those details 'are still being worked out' and it's 'too soon to tell'….

  • CrazyCanuk

    I've always thought that Joel was somewhat delusional. Perhaps a side effect of all the heavy medication he's taking as part of his anger management therapy.

    Even after Jan 14th when it was obvious the whole business was going down the crapper, he was still putting out these little videos of his telling everyone that the future's never been so bright.

    The pattern of reducing head count in order to attain profitability became a part of Nortel culture before Joel showed up on the scene.

  • oldfaithfull

    I agree with some other comment on here. The reason for the custs is to allow Joel to make his 4Q profitability target so he can get his big $$ bonus.

    As with the Erickson deal, Avaya will take the employees it wants, the others will be left with NNL to be laid off, Ayava will not be on the hook for that.

    Sept. 11th is the auction day, it will take at least 30 to 60 days to complete, so we will be well into Q4, this is the reason for the cuts now.

  • nt_is_typical_na_company

    Can't agree more. I know a whole group in Enterprise have done very little this year. Yet everybody still get bonus and it even can add a few people. That is true and that is Nortel.

  • Waddles

    It's time for the Enterprise crew to power down the servers and start making demands for return to normal operations.

    Demand #1- Hackney must be terminated with cause immediately.

    Demand #2- There isn't one. At some point you simply have to do the right thing and take a stand.

    If you need a spokesperson, let me know.

  • zeroman

    Hey Pavi

    can Hackney be one of the first of this 1000

  • watchingitsink

    Hackney should resign too! Before he has another fit of rage and slaps another woman!

    What a loser!

  • whatnext4nt

    Zero killed NT. Culture wasn't perfect, but this is true for all large companies. Copying GE and doing a poor job at that was retarded.

  • blueglas

    Every Nortel Buddies, any information about Beijing R&D?

  • MikeZ_ElPresidente

    you forogot to mention a malaka

  • MikeZ_ElPresidente

    this is the best Hack and Z could ever do…how can we make a profit?…sack more people…how creative is that? I feel sorry for the people in the next company these amateurs land in.

  • micayuranushertz

    Anyone checked to see how many Orbe is getting rid of versus Ventura? How about the people from Canada…. I hear the West is getting hurt more than East… true?

  • micayuranushertz

    Someone need to pound Hackney is the a$$ with a broom stick !!!! He can't even speak correctly! How many um's is a Senior VP allowed in a 45 minute meeting?????????????????????????????????????????????

  • Cataractus

    Hey Hack, why not become profitable by growing the business? ITS BECAUSE YOU CAN'T, LIKE THE REST OF THE GE MAFIA!! What a bozo.

  • NewAge

    MEN is the next one…

    The big question now on the wireline side is who will acquire its profitable Metro Ethernet Network (MEN) division? Nortel's MEN unit has been a shining star for the company. During the first quarter the unit generated $360 million in revenue selling optical and carrier Ethernet gear. Speculation has grown that a deal could come this week with competitor “Ciena” as one of the likely bidders.

  • http://www.decktiledirect.com Wood Deck Tiles

    that is too bad.. seems we all know about global crisis so no wonder Nortel is also affected and other companies..

  • http://www.decktiledirect.com Deck Tiles

    really bad about all this things that happening in our economy..

  • XPM_guy

    How will nortel management decide who stays and who goes?

    Cost, pure & simple: that is the only criteria they need to apply in order to qualify for their KEIP/KERP payouts (the main impetus behind these cuts). Even now they are drawing up the lists across each division…

  • ntpurgatory

    Heard Orbe's going from 90 to 60 or something like that. Of course you can tell by the numbers I've heard whether it's accurate or not as I have no idea how many are in his org…

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