Telecom firm to cut 1,300 jobs this year: sources

MILAN: Telecom Italia (TIM) plans to cut its workforce by 3% this year, two union sources said on Monday, as Italy’s biggest phone group aims to revamp its business amid the COVID-19 crisis.

TIM, which had nearly 42,600 employees at the end of last year, plans to cut some 1,300 jobs in Italy using an early retirement scheme, while hiring new personnel to boost the company’s digital drive, the sources added.

TIM’s managers have informed union representatives of the plan and have said the redundancies will be on a voluntary basis.

TIM was not immediately available for comment.

Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications services provider in revenues and subscribers. It was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most prominent of which was Società Italiana per l’Esercizio Telefonico S.p.A., (known as SIP, from the earlier Società Idroelettrica Piemontese), the former state monopoly telephone operator in Italy.

The company’s stock is traded in the Borsa Italiana. Since 2017, the Italian State exercises on Tim the “Golden Power”, which allows the government to take a number of actions when the strategic interests of the country are concerned.