DUBLIN: Telecommunications company UPC Ireland has confirmed plans to cut up to 170 jobs as part of a major restructuring plan that will see a number of operations being relocated overseas.
UPC said that where possible, redundancies would be achieved on a voluntary basis. It added it hoped that redeployment opportunities would minimise the impact on staff.
Management at the company briefed employees about its future plans, which involves cutting jobs across five facilities, earlier on Thursday.
UPC said the restructuring plans “involved a realignment of business operations to reduce costs and create additional efficiencies .”
The changes taking place will impact a number of divisions across the company but primarily relate to activities in customer care, sales and field operations. UPC will also migrate additional activity from certain outsource partners and relocate this business to other third party suppliers within the Liberty Global group,” said chief executive Magnus Ternsjo.
These changes are necessary to ensure the company remains competitive on all fronts and remains an agile and sustainable business,” he added.Union representatives are to meet with management in Limerick on Friday to discuss the job losses.
“It is with deep regret that our members at UPC Ireland were informed of the company’s plans to implement such a large number of redundancies. Management has stated that the redundancies are unavoidable due to the company’s decision to implement a restructuring plan which will see some operations relocated to the Philippines and others amalgamated.
Out of the approximately 170 job losses over 100 relate to our members,” said Siptu organiser Dennis Hynes. “Over the coming days the focus for Siput representatives will be on minimalising the final number of redundancies and ensuring the best terms are secured for the workers who will lose their jobs,” he added.