NTL to slash 6,000 jobs to save £250 million a year |
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Mon, 08 May 2006 09:40
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LONDON - Cable company NTL is all set to announce close to 6,000 job losses as it reveals the results of the first financial quarter. These staff cuts are a part of the strategy to save up to £250 million a year after the company acquired rival cable operator Telewest for £3.4 billion in October last year.
Telewest and NTL have a combined workforce of about 17,000 employees and the job losses represent an even mix of redundancies and moving jobs out to South Africa and India. NTL already has outsourcing deals with IBM and Fujitsu.
IBM is responsible for dealing with NTL's broadband offering. The group also has eight call centers in the UK and in the aftermath of this announcement is expected to close down several of these and move the jobs out. Some staff from Telewest's headquarters is also expected to be moved to NTL's own headquarters.
These job losses are likely to put the fear into employees of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile, which NTL is set to acquire. The merger is to be completed by July 4, but there are talks of extensive job losses especially in the customer care call center sector.
Stephen Burch, the new NTL chief executive, is slated to inform investors about his strategy in detail, but he will likely be hard pressed to explain away the losses to unions. NTL's failure to acquire the Premiership football television rights has also not gone down well with the investors. Setanta beat them to the post and acquired two packages, while BSkyB ran away with the rest. Analysts say NTL lost out since it did not bid aggressively enough.
Right now though, NTL appears keen on focusing on the "quad play" offerings of mobile phone, broadband, fixed line telephone and cable television.
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