Qwest 3Q profit down; will cut 1,200 jobs

Starting things off today in financial news is Qwest Communications with reports of bad earnings for the quarter. It gets worse, they announce they will be cutting 1,200 jobs.

Here we go again, another day and another company announcing layoffs. This just seems to be normal for me to write about layoffs everyday. Wish there was better news to report, but at the moment Quest is about the only company making headlines.

Apparently for the third-quarter there profit fell 93 percent and they plan to cut 1,200 jobs, or slightly more than 3 percent of there work force.

The Denver-based phone company said Wednesday it earned $151 million, or 9 cents per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30. That's down from $2.06 billion, or $1.08 per share, a year ago. The 2007 results were boosted by a tax benefit.

It says its revenue fell 2 percent to $3.38 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company to earn 10 cents per share on $3.33 billion in revenue. Analyst estimates typically exclude one-time items.