Xerox Mum On Plans To Slash 10,000 Jobs

A Xerox Corp. drive to “aggressively and relentlessly” trim costs could mean big cutbacks, analysts said Tuesday, and one newspaper reported 10,000 jobs would be eliminated.

The belt-tightening at a company that only recently had been adding jobs comes as Xerox moves to better compete in the exploding digital copier business.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, citing unidentified sources, said Xerox will announce 10,000 job cuts - almost 11 percent of its work force of 91,400 - the week of April 6.

As many as 2,000 jobs will go in Rochester, home to 13,900 employees, and Xerox is likely to take a charge as high as $1 billion in the second quarter to pay for the cutbacks over the next two years, the newspaper said.

“We regard the story as speculative and have no comment on it,” responded Judd Everhart, a spokesman at Xerox headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

Wall Street analysts said there were rumblings that Xerox was sharpening its scalpel.