Up to 55,000 jobs could be lost from the BT Group by the end of the decade as the telecoms giant embraces AI for customer service and plans to overhaul its workforce. A spokesperson said the communications company has around 130,000 employees but plans to reduce that number to less than 90,000 by as early as the end of the 2020s. The huge loss of jobs – roughly equivalent to the entire population of Hereford – is due to BT wanting to rely on a “much smaller workforce” and a reduced cost base, and to digitise its processes.
BT said that once its full fibre broadband and 5G network is rolled out, it will not need as many staff to build and maintain the network.
Chief executive Philip Jansen said: “By continuing to build and connect like fury, digitise the way we work and simplify our structure, by the end of the 2020s BT Group will rely on a much smaller workforce and a significantly reduced cost base.
“New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future.”
He added the firm would be working with its union partners throughout the job cuts and would also rely on natural attrition – when an employee leaves the company but is not replaced.
On AI Mr Jansen told the Evening Standard: “It is good for people this, good for customers.
“This new tech is going to be massive, it is as big as the internet, as big as mobile phones. BT can’t be stuck in the past, it needs to be in the future.”
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In July last year thousands of BT and Openreach workers went on strike in a dispute over pay. In October last year BT Group’s Digital unit announced the deployment of a new internal Machine Learning Operations (ML-Ops) platform called AI Accelerator.
At the time Adrian Joseph, managing director, Data & AI, for BT Group, said: “A core driving principle for BT Group is to find a way to safely accelerate the time to value, pound per petabyte, of data.
“AI Accelerator gives us a path to more rapid value with clear oversight of AI use case parameters and performance.”
A statement on the BT website said digital’s goal was to underpin over £500m of internal value from data & AI through improved customer experience and enhanced efficiency and to “help power the transformation required to support BT Group’s long-term success”.
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