TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Layoffs at Lauded AT&T; Plant: AT&T; announced 1,000 layoffs at a factory in North Andover, Mass., honored last year with the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, given by the Commerce Department, for efficient, high-quality work. The company blamed the cuts on slow sales and improved technology that left workers idle. Officials said the cutbacks follow the completion of a major upgrade of American Telephone & Telegraph’s long-distance network, which reduced demand for transmission equipment made at the plant, the company’s largest manufacturing facility. The factory employs 6,000 people.