600 job cuts…

Cable and Wireless, the telecom provider, is adding to the country’s unemployment woes by creating 600 job cuts as a result of their takeover of Thus that took place last year.

The news comes as the company originally announced that they had made a plan to reduce the workforce of the company by 700 employees, which Cable and Wireless said would take place over the following three year period.

However, the 600 jobs that have been cut will actually provide a tidy cost saving tool as the move to reduce the workforce will save Cable and Wireless £7 million.

C&W claim they’re doing fine…

The redundancies come quickly after the company reassured the world that they were on track to make their £780 million goal for the year, which ends in March.

The move to cut the jobs would seem to be a clear sign that the economic downturn is taking its effects on the telecom provider, as analysts claim that “several cracks are now appearing”.

Cable and Wireless are also claiming that the job cuts are a necessary move as the provider takes steps to bring Thus in their Europe, Asia and United State’s businesses.

Manchester, Leeds and Livingstone take the brunt.

The job cuts will be felt in Thus offices located in Manchester as well as Leeds and Livingstone.� The deal between Cable and Wireless and Thus was a hard fought one and was never fully appreciated by the group’s bosses.

Thus originally employed around 1,700 people and was formerly a part of ScottishPower.

Cable and Wireless have been enjoying high profit margins recently due to the weakened Pound, as the company has interests in America where the Dollar is comparatively strong against the Pound.

Strength in the market.

Cable and Wireless’s stock market position has been strong as their share prices rose in recent months.� However, today the company’s stocks dropped by 4 per cent from 163.8p to 156.7p.

The telecoms giant is aware that if the pound remains weak against the dollar then the company can continue to record high profits, even probably higher than originally thought.

Cable and Wireless enjoys a workforce of 14,000 employees and is slightly behind BT, being the second most popular telecoms provider in the United Kingdom.

“In line with our expectations” – C&W Chairman, Richard Lapthorne.

The chairman of Cable and Wireless, Richard Lapthorne, underlined how the merged companies were on track as originally predicted.

“Our two businesses are performing very much in line with our expectations. We remain alert to the economic environment but we continue to trade strongly […] we are confident that we are well positioned going into 2009/2010,” said Lapthorne.