Around 9,000 jobs are to be shed when the merger between Lucent and Alcatel is completed, the companies said Monday night.

In a statement, the pair said they “are on track to complete… the merger transaction by the end of calendar year 2006”. Analysts predicted there would be job losses a as result of the merger, announced at the end of April.

The deal will create the world’s second-largest telecoms equipment firm worth about $33bn but still only a quarter of the size of Cisco.