Telecom job cuts may hit 1230

Telecom chief executive Simon Moutter. Photo / Dean Purcell

Telecom says it expects to axe between 930 and 1230 jobs by the middle of this year as part of its efforts to cut costs.

In a statement just released the company said it would reduce its staff from between 6300 and 6600 down from the 7530 employees it had at December 31 2012.

This follows speculation last week from Labour MP Clare Curran that up to 1500 jobs would be slashed from the firm.

Today the company said it would cut jobs by "constraints on recruitment activity" as well as voluntary and compulsory redundancies.

In an effort to reduce its costs the company said it has made a number of structural changes over the last five weeks.

These include scaling back Gen-i (Telecom's information technology arm) in Australia, where it expects to cut 120 jobs.

The company had also tightened "the management and operational staff levels in all its business units" and had made changes to its HR, Finance and Legal and Corporate Relations departments.

Telecom chief executive Simon Moutter said its changes were "an important step to build a leaner, more agile organisation with a competitive cost structure" that would set the company up to "win in the market".

As a result of its changes, Telecom expects its payroll costs will go down by $90 million to $110 million each year.

It said the one-off costs associated with restructuring are expected to be between $70-80 million.

It expects to incur further redundancy costs as it works through the remainder of its "strategic change" or restructure.