The UK telecommunication giant British Telecommunications (BT Group) has planned massive layoffs to cut up to 55000 jobs and some of these jobs will be replaced by artificial intelligence.
Philip Jansen, Chief Executive, said, “We have delivered our outlook for FY23: this year we’ve grown both pro forma revenue and EBITDA for the first time in six years while navigating an extraordinary macro-economic backdrop. Over the last four years, we have stuck firmly to our strategy and it’s working.”
Philip further said, “Openreach is competing strongly and it’s clear that customers love full fibre. The Openreach Board has reaffirmed its target to reach 25 million premises with FTTP by the end of 2026 and plans to further accelerate take-up on the network.”
“In Consumer, we’re delivering for customers with strong growth in FTTP and 5G, and we’re also seeing green shoots in B2B with a return to revenue growth in the final quarter in Global and the creation of our newly integrated Business unit”, Philip Jansen added.
“By continuing to build and connect like fury, digitize the way we work, and simplify our structure, by the end of the 2020s BT Group will rely on a much smaller workforce and a significantly reduced cost base. New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future”, Philip added.
BT has 130,000 workers including both staff and contractors. The number of its employees would be reduced to between 75,000 and 90,000 by 2030.
Recently, Vodafone, the British telecom giant, announced that it will be reducing its global workforce by 11,000 employees over the next three years. These plans involve the largest job cuts in the company’s history, affecting around 11,000 employees.
So far in 2023, there have been 967 layoffs at tech companies with 300,443 people impacted (2,146 people per day). In 2022, there were 1,557 layoffs at tech companies and 243,318 people impacted (667 people per day).
