British Telecommunications Plc is to cut 6,500 operator jobs over the next two years, closing 63 operator centres throughout the UK. The cuts are in addition to the 10,000 jobs that have been lost over the last year through Telecom’s restructuring programme, Project Sovereign. A British Telecom spokesman said the new redundancies were due to technological advances and added that they would be carried out through attrition, early retirement, re-deployment and voluntary redundancy wherever possible. It denied a report in the Evening Standard that 36,000 jobs are to go over the next three years, but a spokesman added, I cannot say there will not be other changes or structuring. The company’s leaner structure, which has included a reorgansiation of divisions and the scrapping of 5,000 management jobs, is to be in place by April.
