Britain’s BT Group Enters Into Firing Spree To Lay Off Up To 55,000 By 2030 After Fibre Roll-Out Ends.

BT Group, the United Kingdom‘s largest broadband and mobile provider, plans to shed up to 55,000 jobs, including contractors, by 2030, accounting for up to 40% of its staff, as it completes its fibre roll-out and adapts to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. Under the leadership of Philip Jansen, the firm has been implementing a transformation strategy to develop a nationwide fibre network while also launching high-speed 5G mobile services.

The former state monopoly recorded pro forma revenue and core profits growth for the first time in 6 years in the year to the end of March, but the expense of restructuring the firm, as well as the impact on its free cash flow, cost the company’s shares 7% in morning trade.

The layoffs are done as an effort to restructure the BT.

Jansen stated that by the end of the 2020s, BT had a substantially smaller workforce and a significantly lower cost base after finishing the fibre roll-out, digitising its operations, implementing artificial intelligence (AI), and streamlining its structure. According to him, the new BT Group would be a smaller organisation with a better future.

The group’s entire workforce would be reduced from 1,30,000 to between 75,000 and 90,000 by the end of its fiscal year in 2030, it stated. Contractors make up around 30,000 of their current workforce. Jansen predicted BT’s continuing employment cutbacks would escalate when the company completed its fibre deployment and turned off 3G. He stated that it is a rolling plan (of cutbacks), but it has a five-to-seven-year time frame.

Vodafone, BT’s rival, recently announced it would shed 11,000 positions globally to regain its competitive advantage. 

The time arrived when AI is replacing humans!

According to Jansen, digital networks will require 10,000 fewer network engineers, with technologies such as automation and AI replacing another 10,000. There were “huge opportunities” to apply AI, he said, adding that generative AI massive language models would be a quantum leap ahead compared to the debut of the smartphone.

BT will employ AI to improve customer service based on customer wants while seizing new commercial prospects. They will not be in a scenario where consumers feel like they are dealing with a robot, Jansen added, since the company is multichannel–they are online and have 450 stores, and that will not change.

Cashflow Made Investment.

Regarding the full-year performance, Jansen stated that BT made outstanding progress against an “extraordinary macroeconomic backdrop.” It matched market forecasts by increasing adjusted core profits by 5% to 7.9 billion pounds ($10 billion) as growth in networks and consumer businesses offset declines in the enterprise. However, due to higher cash capital investment, free cash flow (FCF) decreased by 5% to 1.3 billion pounds, falling short of the company’s expectations. Forecasts for free cash flow in 2024 were also lower than projected by experts.

According to Chief Financial Officer Simon Lowth, BT would invest the earnings of the British government’s new tax expensing on network construction and connecting customers to fibre. This would result in a free cash flow of 1.0-1.2 billion pounds this year, lower than market projections of 1.22 billion pounds. Openreach, the group’s network arm, restated its goal of reaching 25 million premises with ultra-fast full-fibre connections by the end of 2026. It has been significantly investing in expanding its fibre network quicker than rival Virgin Media O2 and smaller “alt nets.” On a pro forma basis, BT expects sales and core profits to improve this year.

BT desires to have its operations in Indian lands as well. 

BT Group said in January last year that it intends to grow its presence in India to utilise the country’s digital talents in developing new goods and solutions for digital transformation. According to the corporation, India has a vast pool of workers with digital capabilities, which BT plans to exploit to expand operations.

The company believes that is an industry that the country focuses on, so BT intends to make full use of it by developing and bringing a lot of product thinking, design thinking, and engineering skills and leveraging them out of India and empowering the squads there to really work independently and create new products and solutions to help in this whole digital transformation.

Proofread & Published By Naveenika Chauhan