BT to lower costs but job cuts will not affect Irish operations
Management at the Irish division of the international telecommunications group said yesterday: “We’ve been increasing employee numbers to deliver new contracts while reducing numbers in areas of our business where we are experiencing a decline in demand. These reductions have come predominantly through natural attrition. We have no plans to accelerate what has been business as usual for us.”
That line came on the back of the group’s full-year results announcement for 2008, which included an 18% rise in profit and a 4% revenue rise to £800.8m (€893.4m) in Irish operations.
In terms of the managed services contracts recently won by BT here, it has signed a deal with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to provide the country’s 999 emergency call answering service and another with 3 Ireland to be its principal sub-contractor for the delivery of the national broadband scheme in the Republic. O2 Ireland has also outsourced part of its network services to BT Ireland.
“We are performing very well against our strategy of being the leading networked IT services provider as borne out by the nature of these landmark contracts we are winning in the private and public sectors.
“We believe this is a direct result of the global expertise, capabilities and investment we have brought to bear in the Irish marketplace,” said BT Ireland chief executive Chris Clark.
