Turns out the 'speculation' was true

NTL Telewest today confirmed that it will cut a third of its staff, despite claiming yesterday that the figure was "speculation".

The company made the announcement as part of its first-quarter results, and insisted that the job cuts were a necessary part of the ongoing integration of the NTL and Telewest businesses.

"The company forecasts that, as a result of the integration process, a total of 6,000 employees will leave the company before the end of 2007," the NTL Telewest statement said.

"Of these, it is anticipated that some 80 per cent will leave within the next 12 months."

NTL angered staff by responding to yesterday's press reports with a company memo describing the news as "speculation and not an official release", although the firm went on to say that the reports did include "some elements of truth".

"The memo to staff yesterday said there were elements of truth in the rumours," said a spokeswoman for NTL Telewest.

"Today we've gone into more detail and confirmed the integration plans in a comprehensive internal and external communications programme."

NTL had previously outsourced some of its telephone support to call centres in South Africa and India.

Some of the jobs shed by NTL Telewest will be transferred directly to IBM, with 1,535 employees in customer support operations in Swansea, Liverpool and Teesside moving under Big Blue's control.

NTL Telewest said that it hoped some of the other 4,465 employees would move to its strategic partners, although it had no other details of deals so far.

The unions were said to be annoyed about the cuts, as well as the way that staff were informed.

"The fact that the unions are already up in arms about NTL's decision suggests that the telecoms giant may already have had problems liaising and negotiating with union officials," said Martyn Hart, chairman of the National Outsourcing Association.

"Offshoring jobs is always going to highlight concerns, and cutting jobs in a well-established and respected company is always more difficult.

"In this situation employers need to tread carefully, and best practice is frank and careful considerate negotiation with the unions and employees at all stages."

Angel Dobardziev, senior analyst at Ovum, added: "A transformation is underway at NTL. The big question is whether it can complete the mergers, transform the business into a quad-play and make a quantum improvement in customer service all at the same time.

"Determining the strategy is one thing, but executing these three big issues will be an enormous challenge for the NTL management team."