Even British Telecommunications Plc’s group managing director, Michael Hepher, is having to work weekends, judging by the Saturday dateline on the letter sent to all BT people. This explained the need for a further 10% to 12% reduction in the number of jobs – 20,000 to 24,000 – by March of next year. The company is placing the blame for the reductions on a combination of world recession, increased competition in its more profitable sectors and the need to cash in on previous modernisation plans which enable the company to run its operations with fewer staff. The real question now is the extent to which BT can avoid compulsory redundancies. Throughout its rationalisation project, Sovereign, the company managed the trick but, with around 18,000 departures in the financial year just ending, and 19,000 the year before, volunteers are going to become increasingly difficult to find. On the other hand, the company points out that even in rosier times, normal attrition accounts for annual departures of around 5,000 to 10,000 employees. Staff reductions are a costly business. BT says that it will be introducing a new voluntary release scheme that will provide leavers with generous financial compensation together with practical help to help further their careers outside BT. Just what these schemes and programmes will consist of is still up in the air, as is the cost. This year’s 18,000 job cuts were covered by a UKP390m exceptional charge but, if BT resorts to compulsory methods, the price could be very high indeed.
