Telephone service provider BTC yesterday announced it would be cutting an undisclosed number of jobs as part of a company reorganisation to boost efficiency levels.

?In order to achieve an even higher level of operational productivity we will have to ?resize? the company,? BTC CEO Francis Mussenden said at a Press conference.

Mr. Mussenden said there was ?no fixed number for reductions at this point?.

But, he said the company would be asking ten of the staff in its business customer premises equipment (CPE) division to agree to ?voluntary separation?.

The 50 staff members of the CPE group have one to two weeks to decide whether they want to take a separation package.

If at least ten employees do not voluntarily leave, BTC will take the next step and make redundancies.

The company said the voluntary separation package was more ?generous? than the terms of the unions? Collective Agreement which will apply should redundancies be made.

Staff and the unions were informed of the company?s plans before they were made public at the Press conference.

Other job losses will follow, Mr. Mussenden said BTC was going through a systematic process, division by division.

Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess confirmed that BTC had been working with union representatives.

?As always, we do not like redundancies ? we prefer jobs,? he said.

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