BT to cut 6,000 more jobs, 2Q net profit rises

BT Group PLC, Britain's largest phone company, on Thursday reported quarterly earnings rose 18 percent but said it would slash 6,000 more jobs by March to keep costs down and maintain its profits.

Shares surged 9 percent on the news.

The company said profits rose because last year's earnings were artificially weighed by a large one-time restructuring cost, so the job cuts -- which come on top of 4,000 already made -- were necessary to improve overall profitability.

The majority of layoffs will hit workers employed through outside agencies, contractors and offshore workers and represents a 6 percent reduction in BT's global work force, the company said.

Net profit for the three months to Sept. 30 was 400 million pounds ($595 million), compared to 339 million pounds a year earlier, when profits were hit by a 232 million pound one-time restructuring charge. Restructuring charges this year were 72 percent lower at just 65 million pounds ($97 million).

BT said pretax profit before these one-time restructuring and voluntary redundancy costs was down 11 percent at 590 million pounds ($879 million).

Revenue for the period was 4 percent higher at 5.3 billion pounds ($7.9 billion).

Chief Executive Ian Livingston said the job cuts were part of the company's previously announced scheme to reduce costs by as much as 800 million pounds ($1.2 billion) this year, and would help the company's bottom line benefit from its increasing sales.

The company said the 6,000 job reductions would be achieved predominantly by not replacing employees who leave the company. The reductions come on top of 4,000 job cuts the company has made since April.

Of the total 10,000 jobs being cut this financial year, 4,000 are from direct staff and the other 6,000 from outside contractors, including IT and management consultants. The company said cuts would be made across all its business sectors except customer service.

"BT management is now underlining its determination to cut costs in order to benefit from still escalating revenues," said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers.

BT said the biggest drain on second-quarter results was its beleaguered Global Services unit, which offers services to multinational companies and failed to achieve the cost savings it had planned.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and costs at the unit plunged 36 percent over the quarter to 119 million pounds ($177 million).

"Three out of our four business units, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach are delivering on or ahead of target," said Chief Executive Livingston. "But profits in BT Global Services are simply not good enough and we are taking decisive action to put matters right."

Last month, the chief executive of BT Global Services, Francois Barrault, resigned. He has been replaced by Hanif Lalani, who was the group's finance director.

Shares rose 9 percent to 123 pence ($1.84), making BT one of Thursday's strongest performers in London's FTSE 100 stock index, which fell by 2 percent.

The BT job cuts came a day after official statistics showed Britain's unemployment rate rose sharply to 5.8 percent in the three months to September. The rate rose from 5.4 percent in the previous quarter. The total number of unemployed people in Britain is now 1.82 million -- up from 1.79 million in the last figures to August, Britain's Office for National Statistics said.