Telkom cut staff by 70%

JOB LOSSES: IN MARCH 2014 IT HAD 19 781 EMPLOYEES, IN MARCH 2024 HAS 5 845

Even subsidiary BCX has seen its staff complement shrink by over 40%.

Over the past 10 years, Telkom has shrunk its workforce dramatically as the shift from fixed-line to mobile accelerated, with more than 70% of staff cut over the period.

In March 2014, it had 19 781 employees across the business – which at that point comprised Telkom, Trudon (its Yellow Pages subsidiary) and Swift net (its towers unit).

Fast-forward to March 2024, and it has just 5 845 staff in Telkom, fibre and networks subsidiary Openserve and property unit Gyro. This excludes the 4 032 staff at subsidiary BCX as it only acquired the business in 2016 and is not included in the 2014 numbers.

Even at BCX, there have been sharp cuts – with total staff 32% lower than the nearly 6 000 people employed at the business at the end of March 2016. However, this excludes 1,200 Telkom Enterprise staff that were moved to BCX during 2016-17. Factor this in and BCX employee numbers are nearly 45% lower.