Growing speculation of impending job losses at BT

BT is committed to recruiting 3,000 engineers in the coming year despite speculation that the telecoms giant is to announce thousands of global job losses, a union leader has said.
Growing speculation of impending job losses at BTGrowing speculation of impending job losses at BT
Growing speculation of impending job losses at BT

There is speculation that the company is to announce cuts among its 98,000 global workforce, affecting managerial and back office roles, when its annual results are published next week.

Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said: "The CWU have recently secured a victory in the recent pension discussions with BT, as the talks culminated in a hybrid scheme, providing part-defined benefit and part-defined contribution for our members, lessening future risk for employees.

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"This was set against the company's preferred option to do away with defined benefits altogether.

"The CWU continually hold discussions with the company over staffing levels for our represented grades, in particular within customer service and frontline engineering.

"BT has made it clear to us that they plan major investment in both these areas and have already committed to recruit over 3,000 field engineers in the coming year.

"As a consequence, the recent pension discussions and the securing of a hybrid scheme for CWU grades are completely separate and not in any way linked to the speculation about job losses.

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"We are therefore confident any job losses will have little impact on CWU represented grades and we welcome BT's plans to invest and grow in the frontline areas in which our members are mainly employed."

BT declined to comment.