Eir is cutting 750 jobs after its sale to a French billionaire
A consortium led by Xavier Niel purchased a majority stake in the company for €650 million.
EIR HAS ANNOUNCED that 750 employees are set to go at the telecoms company.
In a statement today, it said that the workers will leave as part of voluntary redundancies but that the job losses will not impact in the rural broadband rollout.
“This has been launched in an effort to deliver costs savings and create a leaner, more agile organisation,” Eir said.
The company said that unions and the Minister for Communications Denis Naughten are being informed of the plans.
The job cuts are part of an ongoing campaign by Eir to downsize its workforce. As of February 2018, the company employed just over 3,200 staff, down from more than 5,500 in 2012.
It said that the staff members affected by today’s announcement will be contacted with a “personal financial estimate for their consideration” but a large percentage of the company’s “field force is not eligible” for such a scheme.
Eir said: “Today’s announcement does not in any way impact on the company’s ability to deliver on its recent contractual commitments in respect of our commercial rural rollout of fibre … to 300,000 homes and businesses.”
In January of this year, the former State-owned company withdrew from the bidding of the National Broadband Plan.
Earlier this week, French billionaire Xavier Niel led a consortium that purchased a majority stake in the former state-owned Eir for €650 million. It was previously thought that Niel would pay as much as €1 billion for the stake.
This coincided with the appointment of Carolan Lennon as the new chief executive officer of the company.
In February, Eir reported sales of €322 million for the three months to the end of December, down 2% compared to the same period in 2016. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation increased by €4 million to €125 million.
Written by Sean Murray and posted on TheJournal.ie. Additional reporting by Conor McMahon
