News
The move comes as part of the operator’s ongoing three-year plan to cut costs and strengthen its balance sheet
Today, Telefonica has announced that it has reached an agreement with Spanish trade unions that will see 3,421 of its local employees made redundant. This represents around one third of its 16,000-strong Spanish workforce.
The lion’s share (2,958) of the job losses will come from Telefónica España itself, with 397 and 57 jobs also being cut from the company’s mobile unit (Movistar) and enterprise subsidiary, Telefónica Soluciones, respectively.
The voluntary redundancy scheme will be available for employees aged 56 and above and with seniority of more than 15 years.
The job cuts will begin from the 9th of January, with the majority taking place at the end of February.
According to Telefonica, the total cost of this redundancy plan is estimated at around €1.3 billion before tax but will save the company €285 million from 2025.
Whilst this is still a major reduction in staff, the job cuts are less severe than initially feared. Two months ago, trade unions revealed that Telefonica had identified 5,124 job roles in Spain to potentially eliminate in Q1 2024, with the unions noting that negotiations were ongoing.
Today’s news suggests that these negotiations were effective, with the agreement – called the Third Collective Bargaining Agreement – reducing the total number of voluntary redundancies by around a third of the initial figure. This agreement will last until the end of 2026, with the potential to be extended by a further 12 months.
Additional details about the agreement were not revealed.
Spain’s highly competitive telecoms market has seen the local operators struggling to reduce costs for a number of years now, with job cuts playing a significant role in this process. Trade unions fear that Vodafone Spain, recently taken over by UK-based Zegona, is planning to slash up to 50% of the company’s 4,000 employees. Similarly, the long-anticipated merger of MasMovil with Orange is expected result in significant cuts, with up to 1,000 staff expected to be laid off.
Keep up to date with all of the latest telecoms news from around the world with Total Telecom’s daily newsletter
Also in the news:
Nokia won’t reach end of year financial targets for 2023
How 5G standalone can help our shift to Net Zero
BT misses Huawei equipment removal deadline
