BT cutting 10,000 jobs

6000 to go between now and March

13 November 2008 11:40 GMT / By Katie Scott

BT is struggling with the current economic crisis and has taken the drastic step of cutting a whooping 10,000 jobs.

The telecoms company says that 4000 have already been cut and a further 6000 employees will be told between now and March that they are being made redundant.

Although the job losses will be spread across all of BT's businesses, the UK is going to be hit hard with 70% of the cuts. BT has a global workforce of 160,000.

The news comes as BT revealed its half year results and admitted an 11% fall in second quarter pre-tax profits to £590m.

Revenues were 4% higher at £5.3bn.

Ian Livingston, BT's chief executive, said: "Three out of our four business units, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach are delivering on or ahead of target".

"But profits in BT Global Services are simply not good enough and we are taking decisive action to put matters right."