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- Australian telecommunications giant Telstra cut 1425 jobs on Wednesday
- Titled ‘T22’, the initiative aims to remove $1 billion in costs
- Although Telstra aimed to create Australian jobs in March 2020, T22 marks the continuation of a cost-cutting plan started in 2018
- It comes as Australia begins to economically recover from the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent nation-wide lockdowns experienced last year
- Shares in Telstra are trading steady on Thursday at $3.19 each
Telstra (TLS) cut 1425 jobs on Wednesday, resuming an initiative to shed costs.
Last year in March, Telstra said it would hire new personnel to reverse the redundancies seen in other industries through the pandemic.
The company said it would hire 1000 contracted workers, even utilising them from affected companies such as Qantas.
“We are looking at every aspect of our business to see what we can do for our employees, customers, suppliers and the economy more broadly, while we maintain a focus on long term value creation,” Telstra Chief Executive, Andrew Penn, said at the time.
“The most important thing is that as many businesses as possible are still here when we get through this crisis”.
From early last year, Australia has since made strides in economic prospects — prompting a return to Telstra’s cost-cutting program, which was initially slowed by the pandemic.
On Tuesday, the Reserve Bank said a bumpy, but bright road was ahead after unemployment shrank to 6.6 per cent.
Telstra’s plan to shed $1 billion in costs
The redundancies made on Wednesday, contrasting with the choice to hire in surplus last year, will resume ‘T22’ — a Telstra plan to cut $1 billion in costs.
The strategy was first announced in 2018, outlining a plan to simplify products, streamline infrastructure, and cut redundant positions.
Telstra did say it would put T22’s planned redundancies on hold for six months last April, meaning this grace period was extended to the end of January.
Last week, Chief Executive Andrew Penn gave a keynote speech and said this year would be significant for the initiative.
“We are migrating customers [to 5G products] at scale and we need to complete a restructure of the business,” he said.
“We need to continue to fundamentally change how we operate and we need to complete job reductions put on hold”.
Telstra plans to push its 5G coverage in Australia to 75 per cent by June.
Shares in Telstra are trading steady on Thursday at $3.19 each at 10:25 am AEDT.
