Still on telcos and Telstra is set to cut up nearly 1,500 jobs across the country as part of a deep cost cutting drive to try and rightsize parts of the business.
CEO Andrew Penn personally announcing the changes yesterday afternoon.
In November, Telstra revealed plans to cut fixed costs by more than $1 billion over the next five years, as it battled to deal with several poor examples of service hiccups.
Telstra said it would slash 1400 jobs over the next six months as part of that $1 billion cost-cutting exercise. The latest job losses come after Telstra axed almost 1,100 positions in the June half of 2016
Telstra’s job cuts are expected to reduce construction and maintenance field services, including repairing copper phone lines, as well as staff in Telstra retail stores who provide customer service and support.
“We recognise that if these changes proceed it will mean some valued colleagues will be leaving the business,” Mr Penn said.
“Change of this magnitude is always hard. I can assure you our proposal for these changes has been made after careful deliberation.” Telstra currently employs more than 32,000 full-time workers.
Telstra reported first-half net profit dropped 14.4% to $1.79 billion off the back of a 6.4% fall in revenue to $12.80 billion. The telco reaffirmed its guidance for low-to-mid-single digit earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation growth and free cash flow of between $3.5 to $4 billion for 2016-17.
It also flagged restructuring costs for the full financial year of between $300-500 million. Telstra shares eased 0.4% to $4.36.
