BT losses escalate, 15,000 jobs to go

Telecoms giant BT has today announced plans to axe 15,000 jobs this year - with the majority being in the UK.

The group also announced a full-year loss of £134 million due to a poor performance within its Global Services unit - which has written down £1.3 billion within the division.

The loss of £134 million for the 12 months to the end of March compares to a profit of nearly £2 billion the previous year.

BT’s chief executive, Ian Livingston, said: “Three out of four of BT’s lines of business have performed well in spite of fierce competition and the global economic downturn.”

“However this achievement has been overshadowed by the unacceptable performance of BT Global Services and the resulting charges we have taken,“ he added.

Meanwhile, commenting on the job losses, a BT spokesperson said: “Our aim is to work closely with the unions to reduce BT’s total labour cost, of both direct and indirect staff, as this is critical to the success of the company going forward.”

The company said it has no plans for compulsory redundancies and hopes to eliminate the positions through natural wastage and voluntary redundancies.

Finally, BT has slashed its dividend to 6.5p from 15.8p. Shares in the group lost 3.6% in this morning’s trading.

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