 BT Belfast reveals plans to make 90 staff members redundant this year
Staff have told Belfast Live it was an "out of the blue" announcement made on Tuesday with redundancies in place
One of Northern Ireland's biggest employers has announced nearly 100 staff members will be made redundant this year. There are 90 positions at BT's headquarters at Riverside Tower in Belfast impacted by changes at the company.
Staff have told Belfast Live it was an "out of the blue" announcement made on Tuesday, with redundancies in place from May 31. One staff member added: "It's a huge shock to the people impacted but also the economy."
A BT Group spokesperson said: “Today, we shared proposals with a small number of colleagues in Belfast to transfer some of the work they do to other BT office locations. We are discussions with anyone affected by our proposals and, if we go ahead, we have shared other opportunities in the wider Belfast office. There is no impact to customers.”
Read more: Belfast city centre bar withdraws application for Monday 'student nights'
In 2023, the company completed the multi-million-pound refurbishment of its flagship Riverside Tower office in Belfast, and stated it "continues to invest in the region." A spokesperson added: "Belfast remains a strategic location for BT Group and is home to around 2,000 colleagues from across the company, including EE, BT Business and Openreach."
Sinn Féin MP John Finucane has said BT must do all it can to protect as many jobs as possible at its Belfast headquarters. The North Belfast MP said: “News that 90 positions in BT’s Belfast headquarters could be at risk of redundancy is concerning, and I want to firstly extend my solidarity to these workers as they learn about this news.
“This will come as a devastating blow to these workers and their families, some with decades-long experience at the company.
“I will be writing to the company calling on its management to do everything it can to retain as many jobs as possible, and support those workers made redundant with retraining or re-skilling. BT must now ensure they work alongside trade unions to keep employees informed of any developments as this process develops.”
Across BT Group, the company employs more than 3,400 people in Northern Ireland, with its activities here contributing more than £630million to the local economy.
In January 2024, BT Group announced plans to recruit nearly 40 apprentices and graduates in Belfast for its September intake. The company recruited apprentices in software engineering, customer service, applied research, data analytics and cyber-security. The roles included 28 graduate jobs and 11 apprenticeships.
Last October, 300 staff members at a BT call centre in Enniskillen were made redundant, with many of the employees involved taking voluntary redundancy. |
What meeting |
BT CEO invited to the big meeting today. |
Given yesterday's tech rout maybe peeps will start to see the UK as a reasonable place to invest.
Hope so.
Suet |
Stop giving away freebies for a monthly token price on mobiles...all you can eat texts, minutes and data... |
BT struggles for growth
BT is facing intensifying competition and regulatory pressures and at the first-half stage the company trimmed its estimates for full-year sales.
AJ Bell analysts say that “at least this means expectations are low as Allison Kirkby becomes the latest BT boss to try and negotiate the many cross-currents that face the company”.
This is probably no bad thing, say Bell’s researchers in a note, as BT is finding it hard to generate much by way of growth overall.
BT has had to backtrack on its prior forecast of growth in sales for the full year to March 2025. Management now expects a drop of 1% to 2%.
Watch out for updates on the £3 billion cost-cutting programme, the rapidly shrinking pension deficit and progress at the merged BT Sport-Discovery Eurosport business.
The company last week reported that half of Scottish homes and businesses can now get connected to ultrafast, reliable broadband following Openreach investment in the new digital network.
It has spent more than £435 million on full fibre links for Scotland so far, with 1.45 million properties now able to upgrade and take-up at 38% ahead of the UK average.
Katie Milligan, Openreach chief commercial officer and chair of its Scotland board, said: “Fast, reliable connectivity is a game-changer in every part of Scotland. It fuels economic growth and can support the redistribution of economic activity to less populated areas.
“This is quite simply one of the most significant infrastructure upgrades Scotland will see this century. We’re paving the way to future job creation, remote work, digital learning, and innovative healthcare access.” |
Name says it all really. Wittyif nothing else |
BT looks a long term hold |
Report in the press today that BT (EE) is concerned by Apples power in the mobile market.
They want monopoly people to look at the implications of the 'virtual sim' being introduced by Apple.
VOD are also concerned.
Should we be worried about this? |
At £1.42 now, BT’s share price looks cheap to me anywhere under £3.64
BT’s shares have dropped 12% from their 12-month traded high of £1.61, leaving them looking undervalued to me, and yielding an attractive 5.6% as well. |
Wasn't Openreach supposed to be the Golden goose?... |
The amount of broker notes that come out for BT and VOD so often is a suspect...do they have an agenda... |
Sounds like some nervous shorts need a few shares. |
BT a 'conviction sell' for UBS on Openreach concerns
BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) has been slapped with a conviction sell rating by UBS, which believes the increasing impact of competition on its Openreach arm is being underestimated and masked by recent price rises.
In particular, there is material exposure to two large clients – Sky/TalkTalk – both of which are shifting business away from BT/Openreach over to altnets, which are 20-40% cheaper.
"Sky spends over £1.1bn a year on broadband wholesale costs exclusively with Openreach and recently announced a deal with CityFibre that we estimate will see £150-300m of business annually transfer".
As BT is paying no UK taxes, the impact is minus 10-20% on group cash flow.
TalkTalk also spends more than £1bn as year with Openreach but its subscriber numbers are dropping.
Broadband line losses are also accelerating and if line losses do not improve, Openreach revenues look set to turn negative.
Adjusting for underlying costs, BT is trading on a yield broadly similar to bonds with a dividend uncovered by cashflow and pensions payments rising.
In short, UBS sees the shares pricing in continued growth in Openreach, an improvement in line losses, ongoing cost saves at BT and growing free cash flow, which it sees as unlikely.
Shares rose 0.4% to 142p. |
Openreach nears million mark in copper stop sell scheme
UK’s largest telco reveals extent of progress in network transformation programme to make full-fibre network available to more than 14 million homes and businesses by the end of 2027
As it continues in its mammoth plan to move all of its customers off the public switched telephone network (PSTN) from the end of 2025 to January 2027, BT broadband division Openreach has announced a record number of 163 new exchange locations, covering more than 960,000 premises across the UK, where the business plans to halt the sale of traditional copper-based phone and broadband services to encourage people to upgrade to new digital services over a full-fibre connection.
The programme was first mooted in 2019 to encourage people to upgrade to new digital services over an ultrafast full-fibre connection. The BT-owned company believes legacy network skills and parts are increasingly difficult to come by, and new digital services such as voice over IP (VoIP), video conferencing and a whole range of apps have become more popular and effective for people communicating with one another.
By eventually retiring analogue phone lines, Openreach said it will create a simplified network that will meet the enhanced needs of an increasingly digital society. As regards the importance of the move, Openreach sees the shift from copper to fibre networks as “every bit as significant as the move from analogue to digital and black and white TV to colour.”
In practical terms, the stop sell process is triggered when a majority (75%) of premises connected to a particular BT comms exchange can get a full-fibre connection. Customers who then want to switch, upgrade or regrade their broadband or phone service will have to take a new digital service over Openreach’s full-fibre network. Customers in these exchanges not yet able to get full fibre at their premises won’t be impacted, and can stay on their existing copper-based service until full-fibre becomes available.
BT is in the process of transitioning more than 14 million traditional lines across the UK onto digital services to realise its plan on a national basis. Following the decision to shut down the PSTN, it was agreed to test processes for migrating customers to fibre services and, ultimately, withdraw legacy copper services and the wholesale line rental products that rely on them.
Openreach has already been implementing a UK-wide stop sell on sales of new analogue wholesale line rental and related broadband products. The business is giving communications providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone, which all use its network, a year’s notice that it will no longer be selling legacy analogue products and services in these circumstances.
Despite the general progress in the programme, in May 2024, BT Group revised its timetable for moving all customers off the PSTN from its original date of the end of 2025 to January 2027. The new deadline followed the introduction of a series of improvements to the programme that BT assured would better protect vulnerable customers and those with additional needs, including telecare users. BT said its revised approach will also result in a single switch for the majority of customers – both businesses and consumers, from copper to fibre.
By mid-February 2025, “stop sell” rules will have been activated in 852 exchanges – meaning more than seven million premises will be under active stop sell, around 40% of Openreach’s total 17-million full-fibre footprint.
“We’re moving to a digital world, and Openreach is helping with that transformation by rolling out ultrafast, ultra-reliable and future-proofed digital full-fibre across the UK,” said Openreach’s managed customer migrations manager, James Lilley.
“This game-changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries and daily lives,” he added.
“Already, our full-fibre network is available to more than 17 million homes and businesses, with more than 5.5 million premises currently taking a service … As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future-proofed technologies.” |
Any help as to where the article is? |
Oddo BHF starts BT with 'underperform' - price target 118 pence
Perhaps explains the weakness today. |
I'm sitting on a 40% loss and will be pushing up daisies before this shows any meaningful improvement.
Suet |
Sorry, correction BAE was 7.20 |
So many U.K. shares have doubled since Jan 2023 BT 1.15 now 1.42 For example BAE 6.00 Jan 23 now 11.94, there are many others.Yes the div at 6.4% helps, but it still does not top better shares |
What is wrong with dog of a share, market is flying, household names up 40% since December. Can't wait to get out :-( |
Report Examines Customer Take-up of Openreach vs AltNet Broadband ISPs UPDATE |
BT Group Trials 5G Network Slicing at Belfast Christmas Market
BT Group has announced the first real-world deployment of 5G Standalone network slicing capabilities over the EE mobile network, launched to support faster and more resilient mobile payments at Belfast’s Christmas Market, which took place last month.
During the two-week trial, a dedicated slice of the EE 5G network was partitioned for use in the renowned Lavery’s Beer Tent to support its eight mobile payment terminals, enabling superfast card and mobile payments for thousands of customers – even during the market’s busiest periods. It marks the first time that a business has benefitted from access to a partitioned slice from EE’s public network and live 5G Standalone core.
Network slicing uses 5G Standalone technology, which BT Group launched last September, to provide a customer with a protected ‘slice’ of the network for assured performance, boosting connectivity speeds and lowering latency by minimising congestion and unlocking bespoke capacity for businesses.
The trial successfully demonstrated the capability of network slicing to bypass congestion in busy locations and keep businesses connected through dedicated quality of service. It follows the availability of 5G standalone connectivity for BT's small business customers as part of the company’s investment in the networks of the future |
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