Clear-cutting at one of Germany’s largest mobile phone providers: Vodafone Germany is massively cutting jobs. The company wants to save around 400 million euros.
Vodafone Germany is applying the scissors: The telecommunications provider wants to save and relocate around 2,000 jobs. The company announced this on Tuesday in Düsseldorf. Vodafone currently has around 15,000 employees in Germany, around a third of them in the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital. This means that 13 percent of employees would be affected by the program. Overall, Vodafone wants to save around 400 million euros over the next two years with the package of measures.
In order to achieve the desired financial effect of around 400 million euros, not only would staff positions be saved, but material and operating costs would also be reduced, said company boss Philipp Rogge in a speech to employees. The measures involve, for example, systems that are outdated or duplicated after company takeovers. Rogge is leaving the company at the end of March.
Vodafone has been in transition for years
Vodafone Germany has been in the process of change for years. Under Rogge’s predecessor Hannes Ametsreiter, many customers recently complained that Vodafone was unable to keep full-bodied advertising promises when it came to landline connections, for example. Rogge now explained that Vodafone has begun to realign itself – and has returned to growth with improved networks and offerings in recent quarters. “Vodafone therefore wants to make itself even simpler, faster, leaner and therefore more powerful in the next two years.”
As part of the “transformation program,” “simpler products and services” will be developed in the future. Costs should be reduced primarily by dismantling complex structures and modernizing network elements and IT systems. Vodafone will proceed in a socially responsible manner when it comes to personnel changes, promised Rogge, who only took over the CEO position from Ametsreiter in July 2022. Certain manual tasks would be carried out through increased automation in the future. Vodafone also wants to hire new people in other areas. Growth areas such as the cloud business and “customer-related positions, especially in the corporate customer area” are to be strengthened with experts.
Source: Stern
