BT CEO criticized for £1.8m bonus as company plans major job cuts

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BT CEO Philip Jansen received an annual bonus that’s bigger than his salary, despite the company planning on slashing thousands of jobs in the next seven years.

As reported by CityAM, Jansen received a £1.8m bonus last year, on top of his annual salary which amounts to £1.3m.

In total, Jansen concluded the fiscal year with £3.1m in his bank account - a slight drop from his total earnings of £3.35m the previous year.

A "dip" in performance

The publication explains that executive directors have the opportunity of earning double their base salary in annual bonuses, depending on the company’s performance during their reign. The problem is - BT hasn’t exactly had a stellar performance, the report suggests. In fact, its pre-tax profit declined by 12% year-on-year, to £1.7bn. Revenues have also “slightly dipped”.

At the same time, BT plans on slashing up to 55,000 jobs by the end of the decade, a move that has made some unions angry about Jansen's pay packet.

The union Prospect, claiming to speak on behalf of thousands of BT’s managers, said it was “deeply concerned” by how many jobs BT was planning to cut.

Its national secretary, John Ferrett, said: “Announcing such a huge reduction in this way will be very unsettling for workers who did so much to keep the country connected during the pandemic.” 

Prospect has now called for an urgent meeting with Jansen to discuss the plans, with the Communication Workers Union (CWU) also saying that migrating from copper to fiber will understandably result in fewer jobs, but added that the company needs to be tactical when it comes to layoffs. 

“However, we have made it categorically clear to BT that we want to retain as many direct labor jobs as possible and that any reduction should come from sub-contractors in the first instance and natural attrition,” it said. The CWU also asked for a meeting to discuss the plans.

Via: CityAM

Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.