Bookham Technologies' purchase of Nortel Networks' optical component operation earlier this month could cost as many as 300 local jobs as the British firm integrates the operation with its own.
According to published reports, sources close to the deal say as many as 300 workers at Nortel's Advanced Technologies wafer-fabrication operation at the main Carling Avenue campus could be cut as the work is shifted to a similar facility run by Bookham in the U.K.
On Tuesday Bookham said it is hiring two Nortel executives to run the operation. Liam Nagel will become chief operating officer and Mike Scott chief technology officer.
When the US$108 million deal was announced on Oct. 7, Nortel said about 1,300 workers would be affected in Ottawa, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Europe. About 300 positions would be eliminated and the remainder transferred to Bookham's payroll.
Nortel did not say where the 300 cuts would occur, other than to say they were included among the 7,000 cuts Nortel announced in August that will leave its global workforce at 35,000. Estimates at the time suggested only 100 of the cuts would occur in Ottawa.
According to published reports, sources close to the deal say as many as 300 workers at Nortel's Advanced Technologies wafer-fabrication operation at the main Carling Avenue campus could be cut as the work is shifted to a similar facility run by Bookham in the U.K.
On Tuesday Bookham said it is hiring two Nortel executives to run the operation. Liam Nagel will become chief operating officer and Mike Scott chief technology officer.
When the US$108 million deal was announced on Oct. 7, Nortel said about 1,300 workers would be affected in Ottawa, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and Europe. About 300 positions would be eliminated and the remainder transferred to Bookham's payroll.
Nortel did not say where the 300 cuts would occur, other than to say they were included among the 7,000 cuts Nortel announced in August that will leave its global workforce at 35,000. Estimates at the time suggested only 100 of the cuts would occur in Ottawa.
