British Telecom announces 10,000 job cuts, India left untouched

LONDON: UK-based telecom major British Telecom Group (BTG) has announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs at home and overseas by March and further staff in the future as recession looms in UK, but said this would not affect its Indian operations.

BT joins other major British companies who have this week announced big cuts to their workforces.

BT's grim news, contained in a results statement, comes after the Bank of England warned that Britain was likely already in recession.

A BT spokesman said on Thursday that the group had already cut 4,000 jobs and would slash another 6,000 between now and March. No compulsory redundancies were planned, he added.

The deep job losses account for more than six per cent of BT's total global workforce of 160,000 staff.

"The Indian operations would not see any retrenchment. The majority of the job cuts are UK based. It is too early to know country specific job cuts", a company spokesperson said.

British Telecom has 600 employees in India.

Commenting on the second quarter's results, BTG chief executive Ian Livingston said: "Three out of our four business units, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach, are delivering on or ahead of target.

But profits in BT Global Services are simply not good enough and we are taking decisive action to put matters right."

The company added that 4,000 employees have already been given pink slips. Less than half of the jobs to go are direct positions.