Business & Finance

Verizon Communications, the US's largest local telephone service, said it will cut another 10,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its workforce. The company laid off 29,000 employees last year as it and other so-called "Baby Bells" wrestled with falling demand for local access. The latest reductions will not affect expanding long-distance or high-speed digital subscriber line customers, a spokesman said

Two thousand jobs will be cut asWaste Management Inc. realigns its collection, transport, recycling, and other operations, the company announced. The move is aimed at saving $100 million a year. The Houston-based company, an industry leader, serves 27 million municipal, business, and residential customers in the US, Canada, and Mexico.

Its push into the US last year helped to run up a $3 billion net loss, Germany's Deutsche Telekom reported. The company said the red ink would have been even deeper if it hadn't sold its stake in wireless giant Sprint Corp. In June, Deutsche Telekom completed its takeover of money-losing VoiceStream, a purchase reported at between $30 billion and $46 billion. Last month, regulators blocked Deutsche Telekom's plan to whittle down its $54 billion debt by selling six regional cable TV networks to Liberty Media of the US.

Thirteen thousand new jobs are to be added to the payroll of Anglo Platinum, the world's largest producer of the precious metal, a Johannesburg, South Africa, newspaper reported. The hirings come as the nation's mining industry is attempting to recover from a 31 percent drop in its workforce, having lost 189,000 jobs between 1994 and last year.