BT to lay off 10,000 staff

10 February 2012

BT to lay off 10,000 staff

13 November 2008 Pete Swabey

UK telco to shed around 6% of its workforce following drop in profitability

The UK’s largest telco, BT, is to lay off 10,000 workers as it braces itself for the impact of the current recession on its business.

The majority of redundancies will affect ‘indirect labour, including agency, contract, subcontract and offshore workers’, according to a company statement, but a BT spokesperson told reporters that “everyone from IT consultants to call centre workers in the UK and India” will be impacted. Around 4,000 of the lay-offs have already taken place, with 6,000 more to occur in the next six months.

The company revealed its latest set of financial results this week. In the second quarter of the financial year, the company grew revenues by 4% year on year to reach £5.3 billion. But profit was down 11% to £590 million compared with the same quarter last year – due in main to a steep profit drop in its Global Services division.

“What we have to do now is translate revenue growth into better profitability,” said CEO Ian Livingston.

BT currently employs around 160,000 staff.

Further reading

BT Global Services head quits after profit warning

Dell offers employees redundancies and institutes unpaid leave

Sun posts $1.7 billion loss

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