British Telecommunications Plc confirmed yesterday that it will be looking to shed another third of its workforce – around 50,000 jobs – in the medium term, but it won’t know exact numbers until after its present downscaling exercise has been completed; it will then have around 100,000 people in its existing businesses, but no doubt the payroll will be larger as it expands into new areas; no-one seems to have a firm number, but with Mercury Communications Ltd and a host of cable television and cellular players, the UK telecommunications sector must employ many more people now than it did at the time of British Telecom’s privatisation, despite all the jobs that have been lost at the former monopoly provider of telephone service.
