BT to announce 6,000 job losses as part of £500m cost-cutting drive

Cuts will be in addition to 4,000 redundancies announced in May last year

BT wrote down the value of its Italian business by £571m in January last year after uncovering improper accounting practices (Reuters)

BT is set to cut more than 6,000 jobs next week as it struggles with poor financial performance and the fallout from an accounting scandal at its Italian division, according to reports.

The cuts will be in addition to 4,000 redundancies announced last May as part of chief executive Gavin Patterson’s £500m cost-cutting strategy.

If the latest round of redundancies goes ahead, BT will have slashed almost 10 per cent of its 106,000 in 12 months.

Middle managers are thought to be likely to bear the brunt of the latest potential redundancies which were first reported by the Financial Times. BT declined to comment.

Philippa Childs national secretary of Prospect, a union which represents BT workers, said she was aware that the company may be looking to cut jobs.

She said: “Our priorities are to ensure that our members’ jobs and livelihoods are protected and with that in mind Prospect’s Industrial Relations Committees will expect to be consulted and heavily involved in any staff changes that are being proposed.”

The union is waiting to hear further details from BT next week.

Ms Childs said: “Prospect will also ensure that BT is aware that its managers are highly skilled professionals and any people reductions must not overload those who remain or push work down to people at lower levels.”

BT’s chief executve has been seeking to appease shareholders who have seen BT’s value halve in the past two years.

In January last year, BT wrote down the value of its Italian business by £571m after uncovering improper accounting practices that meant it had overstated its earnings for a number of years.

BT has spent billions securing rights to show Premier League football and also shelled out £12.5bn to buy mobile operator EE in 2015

Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said he did not believe that any redundancies would affect engineering and customer service roles.

“BT has made it clear to us that they plan major investment in both these areas and have already committed to recruit over 3,000 field engineers in the coming year,” he said.

BT announced in March that it planned to go on the largest recruitment drive in its history, by taking on 3,500 trainee engineers over the year.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, shadow business secretary, said: "The latest round of job losses are devastating and brings the total number in the last year alone to a shocking 10,000 jobs.

"These job losses will have a real impact on working families and the local community. They raise serious questions over BT's strategy, whether it's the appeasement of shareholders in the short term or investment in the long term.

"The Government must urgently meet with BT and the unions to ensure that there are no further job losses and that workers made redundant are properly supported."