SiliconBeat

ShoreTel, the Sunnyvale telecommunications company, filed news today of a “restructuring plan to lower its cost structure and improve efficiencies by reducing its worldwide workforce by approximately 9 percent.” That would be equal to about 33 employees based on the company’s last published headcount of 365 as of June 30. The company expects the terminations, which are to be completed by the end of this quarter, to cost between $400,000 and $600,000, which will be charged to its recently ended fiscal 2009 third quarter ended March 31.

No word on how many of the employees being let go took part in an option exchange program completed in Feburary that let them trade in some underwater options for new options priced at $4.82. But all five of the company’s top executives participated. About the same time those same executives were also offered “retention incentive agreements” that promised certain “termination benefits” that replaced their existing severance agreements.