BT to layoff 10,000 employees amid profit downfall

In a move to cope up with the decline reported in its Q2 earnings, British Telecom Group (also known as BT) said it will lay off 10, 000 jobs, representing 6 percent of its workforce that comprises of 160,000 people to be completed by its fiscal ending March 2009.

Out of the planned lay offs, larger part of them will be from the area of indirect labor, which includes agency, contractors, subcontractors and offshore workers, said the company.

The announcement follows the 11 percent drop in profit pitched by the company in the second quarter ended 31 September.

Its EBIDTA Global Services dropped 36 per cent in the three months to the end of September to £119 million, on exclusion of costs.

Further its Group pre-tax profits, before costs associated with the job losses, fell to £590m, 11 per cent down, while its revenue surged by 4 percent to rest at £5.3bn, as against the same period in the previous year.

Earlier last month, BT appointed Hanif Lalani, the former finance director to head Global Services and speed up the cost cutting program.

According to Lalani, over 4,000 of the planned 10,000 job cuts have already been made and the cuttings amongst the workers working directly for BT will be executed through natural turnover.