Spanish union UGT has confirmed speculation circulating for a number of weeks: that Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica has devised a new voluntary redundancy plan that could see thousands of people leave the company.

The union said Telefónica will offer voluntary redundancy to staff born in 1967 or earlier and with at least 15 years of employment at the company. The UGT has calculated that 3,261 employees would meet those conditions.

Telefónica, which directly employs 16,000 people in Spain, would limit take-up of the offer to 60% of eligible staff, UGT said, meaning that the maximum number would be around 1,950 people. The union added that KPMG helped to formulate the plan.

Figure 1: Heading to the exit: The UGT union said a new voluntary redundancy plan could end up affecting 1,950 people.
(Source: Reuters/Alamy Stock Photo)

Some departments should be spared from the measures, such as those focused on cybersecurity, marketing and artificial intelligence, UGT representative Diego Gallart told Reuters.

"Most of the redundancies will be offered in the network deployment, maintenance and more basic customer service departments," Gallart said.

"But it's hard to say whether uptake will be in line with previous averages of 70% because the more senior staff are being presented with worse conditions than in past packages and may not find the current one appealing," he told the news agency.

Sources previously told Reuters that 2,000-4,000 jobs would be cut, meaning that the news is not quite as bad as feared.

Jobs pain in Spain

Telefónica becomes the third major telecoms group to seek redundancies in the highly competitive market of Spain this year after similar moves by Vodafone Spain and Orange Spain.

Indeed, Vodafone Spain has already eliminated nearly 900 jobs from its payroll in the last two years, according to the annual report issued by Vodafone Group.

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In September, it announced plans to cut a further 515 staff members, although that number was apparently then trimmed down to 509 and will be partly achieved by closing all 34 Vodafone-branded retail outlets in Spain.

Orange Spain said it was planning to cut close to 500 jobs during May and June 2021 as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to exacerbate tough local market conditions.

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— Anne Morris, contributing editor, special to Light Reading