Rabbitte 'hopeful' Eircom cuts won't be as severe as expected

on 01/11/2012 10:26:29

The Minister for Communications says he will meet with management at Eircom to discuss plans for 2,000 job losses at the company.

Eircom is to shed over a third of its workforce by 2016, as part of cost-cutting measures.

Minister Pat Rabbitte says the expectation is that the job losses will be on a voluntary basis, although he says it will be difficult to achieve that in the current economic climate.

He also says he hopes the scale of the cuts may not be as severe as first expected.

"I would hope that the company would be able to efficiently restructure its business without having to scale down as much as the figure in the public domain.

"We will see when discussions start between company and unions whether that figure is as severe as it seems this morning."