Vodafone axes 375 back office jobs in the UK
10 Mar 2010
Vodafone, the world's largest mobile telecommunications network company is planning to axe 375 jobs across its business in the UK in an efficiency drive that would bring in savings of £1 billion.
Newbury, Berkshire-based Vodafone, which employs around 9,000 staff in the UK, will be cutting jobs "primarily in back-office functions" such as administration, human resources and finance from a number of locations in the UK including its headquarters starting from this month.
However, Vodafone also said that it will hire 170 people in "customer facing roles," in order to improve its services, and will hire an additional 50 graduates in September under its UK graduate programme.
The cuts are part of the company's £1 billion cost-cutting programme undertaken by the group last year as it looks to improve its fortunes.
"We're committed to increasing the number of customer-facing employees, which will help us simplify our business and continue to deliver outstanding communications services across the UK's best network," said Matthew Brearley, human resources director at Vodafone UK.
In November 2009, Vodafone had warned of a sharper than expected reduction in its profit margin in 2009-10 and revealed a £1 billion cost-cutting programme. (See: Vodafone Plc trims outlook amid Indian price war)