Vodafone cuts 500 jobs…

Well, it’s happened – Vodafone have indeed announced their move to make 500 job cuts in an attempt to save around a billion pounds in the face of the current economic downturn and the added issues of troubled profits.

Rumours of the cuts were circling the web-waves yesterday, although Vodafone were refusing to comment on the matter and the total figure of those workers being made unemployed was unknown.

The 500 workers that are set to lose their employment were informed this morning.� Vodafone have announced that they will be making the cuts throughout their sections around the country although they mentioned that retail operations aren’t expected to be affected.

No effect to operations of services…

As Vodafone have made it as clear as crystal that operation will not be affected or delayed in any way does indeed make one wonder why they needed all the employees in the first place.

Around 170 employees are being released from the Newbury headquarters after only a year after close to a further 450 jobs were cut.

Squeeze ‘em for everything they’ve got…

The move comes as Vodafone’s boss Vittorio Colao announced that the company were looking to aim at squeezing their current customers for every penny they could – they clearly don’t need as many staff to do go down that route.

“New roles are being created to develop total communications services and solutions and in addition the retail estate and online services will be the focus for ongoing investment”, claimed Vodafone.

However, Vodafone have suggested that the 500 cut jobs will help towards bringing costs down, saying, “as customers look for best value in their mobile services, Vodafone intends to reduce its cost base whilst continuing to invest in new products and services to meet changing customer needs.”

10,000 employees make up the Vodafone UK family.

500 employees only make up a small fraction of Vodafone UK who employs around 10,000 workers around Britain.

Meanwhile, the Connect union which looks after workers with telecoms providers, were clueless about the whole situation yesterday too.� However Connect are know looking to work with Vodafone over the issue and have accepted the move.

“Where redundancies are absolutely unavoidable, then we will be pushing the company to pursue a voluntary approach and to establish fair and transparent selection criteria.

“We will be working very closely with the company to ensure that our members are treated with respect during this difficult time and that a full and proper process of consultation is carried out,” said Steve Thomas, Connect’s national officer for Vodafone.

Nokia taking a more subtle method!

Other companies are looking at saving costs in different ways, rather than falling back to making redundancies.� Nokia has introduced a global “Voluntary Resignation Package” to encourage their staff to either leave voluntarily or take an unpaid holiday or sabbatical.

Nokia are also looking to “increase cost-efficiency and adapt to the challenging market environment” in a similar way to Vodafone.

However, Nokia are looking to be slightly more tactful whereas Vodafone are taking the matters into their own hands.