DISNEY TO CUT 4,000 JOBS.(BUSINESS)

The Walt Disney Co. will eliminate 4,000 full-time jobs, or about 3 percent of its work force, citing "increasingly pressing challenges of the softening economic environment."

The media and entertainment giant said Tuesday it will try to achieve the reduction through a voluntary program within the next month, but that jobs will be cut if the voluntary effort fails. The cuts will come across all operating areas, including the company's corporate staff in Burbank, Calif., and would be accomplished by July, the company said.

Officials said the cuts would result in $350 million to $400 million in annual savings.

Wireless provider Ericsson trims jobs

LM Ericsson of Stockholm, Sweden, is eliminating 3,300 jobs, or 3 percent of the wireless technology company's worldwide work force, in response to weakening economic conditions that have already forced sweeping cutbacks at U.S. rival Motorola.

Ericsson, one of the world's top manufacturers of cellular network equipment and mobile phones, said the moves will cut annual costs by at least $2 billion.

The sudden economic slowdown in the United States and other markets has hit the wireless industry hard. Just last week, Motorola announced the latest in a series of downsizing efforts that will eliminate a combined 22,000 jobs. Meanwhile, Finland's Nokia said Tuesday it would lay off up to 400 people in its network equipment operations.

Nortel Networks issues profit warning

Nortel Networks won't meet the sharply reduced profit forecasts the maker of optical and wireless network equipment set just a month ago, and now plans to eliminate 5,000 more jobs on top of the 10,000 already cut since the start of 2001.

The warning Tuesday by the Canadian company, a bellwether for the technology industry, echoed the increasingly dire projections coming from Cisco Systems, the world's leading producer of network equipment for the Internet.