Telecom New Zealand has announced plans to as many as 1,230 jobs and downsize its back-office functions, and has revealed that there will likely be more cutbacks to come.
New Zealand's incumbent operator said it would reduce its number of full-time employees from 7,530 to between 6,300 and 6,600.
The cuts will be distributed across Telecom's HR, management, finance, legal and corporate relations functions.
The announcement comes weeks after Telecom NZ decided to scale back its Australian IT services operation Gen-i Australia, cutting two thirds of its staff and reducing its focus to serving only large corporate customers with a trans-Tasman focus.
Telecom NZ expects restructuring costs of around NZ$70 million to NZ$80 million ($585-670 million) from the cutbacks. But once complete, the operators anticipates that payroll costs will be reduced by NZ$90 million to NZ$100 million.
The company has also disclosed that this is likely to be only the first wave of cuts.
Telecom NZ's statement notes that it “expects to incur further redundancy and other one-off costs associated with cessation of business activities as it works through the remainder of its strategic change process.”
It adds that Telecom NZ will make an announcement of any business units to be shut down once management makes its decisions.