Elisa to cut again more than 200 jobs

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The telecommunications operator Elisa is to start job cut negotiations with its personnel on Monday, which are expected to lead to the elimination of between 180 and 210 jobs in the company.
      The dismissals are to focus on the company's corporate customer service unit.
      The unit is spread out over Finland, but the greatest impact of the planned job cuts is expected to be in the Helsinki region.
      According to Elisa's head of personnel Risto Rinta-Mänty, the company hopes that as many employees as possible will take advantage of outplacement services and other arrangements, so that actual dismissals could be avoided as much as possible. He also said that Elisa would offer its personnel generous outplacement counselling services. "Nobody is being coldly sacked", Rinta-Mänty says.
     
Elisa CEO Veli-Matti Mattila predicted a few weeks ago that there would be more personnel cutbacks in the next two years. Elisa has already enacted considerable personnel reductions. At the end of 2003 Elisa still had more than 7,000 employees, and now there are fewer than 5,000. The company has shed nearly 500 jobs since last spring.
      The moves are part of a new Elisa efficiency programme aimed at savings of about EUR 40 million a year.
      Earlier this month Elisa said that it would outsource some of its subscription handling and invoicing operations. Under the plan, present Elisa employees would move to a new employer.
      Elisa's pre-tax result for the last quarter of 2005 had declined to nearly half of what it was a year earlier.
     
Elisa employees were told of the upcoming job-cutting talks earlier in the week, and employee shop steward Juha Kivistö says that spirits among personnel have been low.
      "Motivation among the employees is poor. Although there will be fewer people, we will be expected to work the same amount. At the same time, the company is talking about all kinds of new areas it plans to conquer. Where are the people to do this?" Kivistö wonders.
      He is not impressed by the severance package. "A dismissal is a dismissal. You get fired anyway, even if you get a little more money."
      An announcement a couple of years ago that Elisa was shedding 900 jobs at one go led to a massive outcry. Since then, the company has made its dismissal announcements in smaller increments.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Elisa employees to walk out Friday in protest of dismissal plans (31.10.2003)

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