BT share price tumbles as firm announces tens of thousands job cuts
BT has announced plans to slash its workforce by as much as 42 per cent over the next seven years in a bid to slash costs and become a “leaner business”.
The firm’s share price was down more than 9 per cent in early trading.
In its full year results today, the telecoms giant said it would look to cut its 130,000 headcount to between 75,000 to 90,000 by 2028 to 2030.
“By continuing to build and connect like fury, digitise 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,” said BT chief Philip Jansen.
“New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future.”
The scale of the job cuts represents one of the largest announced on the stock exchange in recent memory.
The update came as the firm said its “cost transformation” was “on track” with gross annualised cost savings of £2.1bn since April 2020 against a £3bn target, with a cost to achieve of £1.1bn against a target of £1.6bn
Revenues at the frim dipped one per cent to £20.86bn in the year to the end of March after a slowdown in its consumer, enterprise and global divisions. A four per cent boost in revenues in its Openreach unit helped cushion the blow, however.
Pre tax profits also fell 12 per cent to £1.73bn which bosses said was down to “increased depreciation from network build and specific items, partially offset by adjusted EBITDA growth”.
BT has been looking to revive its share price in recent months after an 18 per cent slide over the past year.
“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,” Jansen said.
The move comes just days after Vodafone announced 11,000 jobs would go.