Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca is to cut a further 8,000 jobs across its worldwide operations. The workforce reduction is in addition to the 12,600 global positions that have already been trimmed under the firm's continuing cost-cutting plans.The UK group said the latest round of job cuts would be implemented over the next four years. The global cuts are to take place across the firm's sales and marketing, business infrastructure, research and development (R&D) and supply chain operations. The company also said that some R&D sites may close. AstraZeneca is seeking to achieve cost savings of about 1.1 billion pounds by 2014.