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British telecommunications provider BT will cut around 10% of its total workforce, meaning 15,000 jobs, following a loss of £134 million during the 2008 financial year. Most of the jobs will be cut from the United Kingdom.



The company's troubles come largely from the £1.5 billion losses in its global services unit. Some senior managers of the global services unit have been removed after what the Communication Workers' Union (CWU) describes as mis-management of the operations. The union is also calling for assurances that senior managers at BT will not be paid bonuses as long as there is a threat to jobs.



The CWU is in negotiations with BT, seeking to avoid compulsory redundancies. Current plans are to reduce staff numbers through natural turnover and voluntary redundancies. The union expects the majority of job losses to be staff who are employed indirectly, through contractors and agencies. The CWU will work with BT to ease the transition for laid-off staff into finding new work and implementing systems to retain current staff, such as secondment agreements.