BT to cut 13,000 jobs and move out of central London offices

Anca Alexe 10/05/2018 | 12:27

Telecom giant BT has announced that it will cut 13,000 jobs over three years – about 12 percent of its workers – and move out of their central London headquarters after almost 150 years, in an effort to reduce costs GBP 1.5 billion, the Guardian reports.

A third of the job reductions will come from outside the UK in BT’s Global Services division, and the company also said it would hire about 6,000 new employees to “support network deployment and customer service”. 3,500 of these new jobs have already been announced by BT’s standalone subsidiary Openreach, which builds and manages the UK’s broadband infrastructure.

CEO Gavin Patterson said: “We need to do this to be competitive in the future. If we are compared with our peers, we are frankly too complex and overweight. While I recognize the pain, ultimately it is the right thing to do for the business.”

BT’s share price fell by 8 percent in early trading, showing that investors are concerned about the group’s forecast of lower revenue and profits for this year.

The last 18 months have been very difficult for the company, including due to an accounting scandal at BT’s Italian unit, which cost it GBP 530 million.