Friday 14 November 2008

'British Telecom may axe more jobs'

UK-based telecom major British Telecom may slash more jobs in addition to the 10,000 lay-offs announced yesterday, a report said today.


"BT chief executive Ian Livingston has signalled he is ready to axe more jobs on top of the 10,000 announced yesterday to maintain profits through the looming recession," the UK daily 'The Telegraph' said in a report today.

Quoting Ian Livingston 'The Telegraph' said, "The decision to reduce BT's global headcount by about 6 per cent was 'long planned' and not a 'knee-jerk' reaction to the financial crisis."

According to the report, Ian Livingston expects the country's economy to be in recession for two years but he would do everything he can to ensure the company continues to deliver healthy profits.

"BT has cut its headcount from 250,000 at privatisation in 1984 to 160,000 today and indicated there is scope for more job losses. The company said 4,000 employees have already left the business this financial year and a further 6,000, mostly in the UK, will go by the end of March," he was quoted as saying.

The move to cut jobs comes after the company posted an 11 per cent decline in pre-tax profits at 590 million pounds for the September quarter, which excludes one-off items.

'The Telegraph' noted that British Telecom expects the job cuts to cost 160 million pounds to 170 million pounds.
"It does not anticipate compulsory redundancies. The company also confirmed it has come to a landmark pensions agreement with the unions that could cut its yearly contributions by 100 million pounds.

The telecom entity also proposes raising the retirement age, basing pensions on average, rather than final salary and increasing member contributions," the report added.

Source: EconomicTimes

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