BT Group to Cut 15,000 More Jobs, Posts Loss

LONDON -- Telecommunications company BT Group (BT Quote) said Thursday it expects to cut another 15,000 jobs in the next year after its global services division dragged the company to a fourth-quarter loss of nearly 1 billion pounds.

In the three months ending March 31, BT recorded a net loss of 977 million pounds ($1.48 billion), compared with a profit of 426 million pounds a year earlier.

The global services unit, a provider of communication services for companies and government agencies, posted a pretax loss of 1.5 billion pounds, raising its total losses for the year to 2 billion pounds.

That swung BT Group to a full-year loss of 83 million pounds, compared with the previous-year profit of 1.7 billion pounds.

Fourth-quarter revenue rose less than 1% to 5.47 billion pounds; full-year revenue rose 3.4% to 21.4 billion pounds.

BT said it had cut 15,000 employees in the past year, and expected "further reductions of a similar level next year."

A charge of 1.3 billion pounds, mainly related to two major contracts, was the key factor in global services division's loss in the fourth quarter.

"Three out of four of BT's lines of business have performed well in spite of fierce competition and the global economic downturn," said Chief Executive Ian Livingstone.

"However this achievement has been overshadowed by the unacceptable performance of BT Global Services and the resulting charges we have taken."