PHILADELPHIA-Lucent Technologies Inc. said more than 8,500 administrative and managerial workers accepted a voluntary retirement offer.
The equipment vendor, which employs 104,000 workers, had offered the buyout to 10,000 employees, primarily entry-level employees as well as middle-level executives.
Lucent, which began the year with as many as 106,000 workers is expected to trim that number below 80,000 at the end of 2001. About 6,000 positions are being passed on to contract manufacturers. The equipment vendor would not disclose how much it expects to save from these cuts.
