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The announcement of 2,000 job cuts on Monday came a month after the Canadian company revealed that it would reduce headcount for the first time in a decade.

One analyst said the job cuts were slightly deeper than expected but were key to RIM's recovery from a slump triggered by product delays and intense competition from Apple's iPad and iPhone as well as devices powered by Google's Android software.

RIM's U.S.-listed stock, already near multi-year lows, was down as much as 2 percent before the market opened. It was trading down 1.8 percent at $27.40 on the Nasdaq just before the open.

"This is not totally unexpected. I think the size of (the cuts) is a little bit bigger than what they were intimating before," said Jefferies & Co analyst Peter Misek. "I think this is obviously realigning the cost structure to a new growth, or sales, reality."

RIM said one-time charges from the job cuts were not included in its outlook for the second quarter or for the full year, and it would explain the financial impact of the cuts when it reports second quarter results on September 15.

RIM said the job cuts are "a prudent and necessary step" for its long-term success.

"Cost-cutting is unlikely to change the competitive position for the company" or accelerate RIM's revenue growth, BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis said.

Job cuts would help if the company were moving downstream toward entry and mid-market phones, but in such a case even 11 percent job cuts wouldn't be enough, he said.

If RIM was still chasing the high-end market for smartphones, it shouldn't be focused on trimming expenses, but on executing more effectively, Gillis said.

The BlackBerry maker also announced a string of changes to executive responsibilities and, in the latest departure, said Chief Operating Officer Don Morrison would retire.

Morrison, currently on temporary medical leave, was departing after more than 10 years at the company.

A stream of senior RIM executives have defected lately, including two who left for rival Samsung Electronics in a month.

RIM said when it reported fiscal first-quarter results last month that it would cut jobs to stay competitive, but it gave no details at the time. The job cuts bring RIM's headcount to about 17,000 people.

Misek, who has an 'underperform' rating on RIM's stock, said one to watch was when RIM would adopt its new QNX operating system on its smartphones.

"I think the key here, more than ever, is when do their products launch and what kind of reception will they have and most importantly, when will QNX come in. We don't think those answers are here yet," he said.

(Reporting by S. John Tilak, Euan Rocha in Toronto, Aftab Ahmed in Bangalore; editing by Janet Guttsman and Frank McGurty)

At 0813 GMT, futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.81 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.79 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.59 percent.

Tokyo's Nikkei average .N225 fell 0.8 percent, while European shares lost ground in early trade, halting a one-week rally, driven lower by banking stocks such as Barclays (BARC.L), BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA) and UniCredit (CRDI.MI), down 2.4-2.7 percent. .EU

A divided U.S. Congress pursued rival budget plans on Sunday that appeared unlikely to win broad support, pushing the country closer to a debt default.

Analysts still expect a last-minute deal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and avoid a default next week. But the impasse pushes the United States a step closer to losing its coveted triple-A credit rating as it seems unlikely that Democrats and Republicans will agree before the next election in November 2012 on how to find $4 trillion through government spending cuts and revenue increases.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley warned over the weekend there would be a "few stressful days" ahead for financial markets, with the deadline to lift the $14.3 trillion U.S. borrowing limit only nine days away.

DEBT DEAL

However, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Sunday it was unthinkable for the United States not to meet its debt obligations and was confident a debt deal would be reached.

Concerns that a deal would not be forthcoming have weighed on equity markets, though some positive earnings news helped offset the issue. Major indexes notched solid gains last week, with the S&P and Nasdaq rising more than 2 percent.

"The longer we go without a deal, the more you're going to see concerns on the negative side," said Alan Lancz, president of Alan B. Lancz & Associates Inc, an investment advisory firm based in Toledo, Ohio.

"I don't think the initial reaction was overdone at all. This has to get behind us before the market can trend higher."

Also rattling investors on Monday, credit ratings agency Moody's cut Greece's sovereign debt by three notches on Monday to 'Ca', just one notch above default. The agency said the new bailout package set a negative precedent for creditors of other debt-burdened countries. The downgrade means Greece now has the lowest rating of any country in the world covered by Moody's.

Investors awaited earnings from a raft of companies on Monday, including Texas Instruments (TXN.N), Radioshack Corp (RSH.N), Kimberly-Clark (KMB.N), Broadcom (BRCM.O) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC.N).

On Friday, promising chipmaker earnings and optimism that a solution was on the horizon for the U.S. debt stalemate triggered a move into growth-oriented shares such as techs.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI dipped 43.25 points, or 0.34 percent, to 12,681.16. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX added 1.22 points, or 0.09 percent, to 1,345.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC gained 24.40 points, or 0.86 percent, to 2,858.83.

(Editing by Jane Merriman)