IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 6 July
06-07-2010
by Sylvia Leatham
Eircom mulls more job cuts | SFI says 950 research posts to go
The Irish Times reports that Eircom is in talks with trade unions over a new three-year business plan that will lead to more redundancies at the telecoms group. However, following reports on Sunday that Eircom wants to cut another 2,000 jobs, Chief Executive Paul Donovan said that "no pre-cooked number" has been decided upon in terms of job cuts. "It's difficult to come out with a number," he said. "That needs to be subject to detailed evaluation and agreement with our unions." It is understood that Eircom's senior management made a presentation to unions last week, outlining details of a new three-year business plan. Eircom's current voluntary redundancy plan, expected to be completed by September, will see 1,200 workers leave the business.
Staying with the same story, the Irish Examiner says that sources at Eircom have said the rumoured 2,000 job losses are likely to be spread over at least five years. One source said that reports of 2,000 job losses are "premature", while another said the eradication of 2,000 positions would take five years.
The paper also says that outsourcing firm Stream Global Services is to create more than 400 jobs over the next 12 months at a new plant in Dublin, as reported by ENN on Thursday.
The Irish Independent says that up to 600 research jobs will be lost this year, and another 350 research posts will go next year. The loss of 950 PhD and post-doctoral posts was revealed in figures prepared by Science Foundation Ireland and given to government departments. They losses represent a cut of one-third in the number of SFI-supported researchers in just two years. Last year SFI had only 20 percent of the amount it had the previous year to fund new researchers. Only 46 new contracts were handed out, while only 25 new principal investigators were appointed. New projects, including a major energy project, will not go ahead. Apart from the research posts, other back-up service jobs will also be lost.
According to the Financial Times, UK telco BT hopes to avoid a strike over pay after the Communication Workers Union cancelled a ballot of its members. BT had signalled to the union it would take legal action if the CWU went ahead with a strike. The result of the ballot, which began on 18 June, had been due on Monday. Instead, the union cancelled the ballot before counting of the votes had been completed. Both sides expressed hope that the pay dispute could be resolved without a national strike.
The paper also says that France Telecom has indicated it is preparing to charge its bandwidth-hungry smartphone customers more if they are heavy surfers of the web. Stephane Richard, chief executive, said 'all-you-can-eat' tariffs were "unsustainable". He made the comments after unveiling a five-year plan for France Telecom that is partly designed to improve staff morale, following a series of suicides that plunged the group into crisis last year. The company is to spend EUR900 million on a new "social contract" with its employees that will offer improved benefits and working conditions for staff, as well as hiring 10,000 new employees.
The Wall Street Journal reports that News Corp is in discussions with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo about replacing MySpace's search-advertising partnership with Google, which expires next month, according to sources. Under the existing deal, Google agreed to make up to USD900 million in guaranteed payments for the right to sell small ads on MySpace.com and a handful of smaller News Corp websites. However, recently, MySpace has fallen far short of web traffic and other milestones laid out in the Google contract, which expires at the end of August. In recent weeks, News Corp has been discussing new, narrower advertising deals with Google and other companies, said the source. People close to News Corp said any new agreement will be for significantly less money.
The paper also notes that South Korean mobile operator SK Telecom is in talks with Apple to offer the iPhone and iPad to its customers. SK Telecom's main rival, KT Corp, has been the exclusive South Korean carrier of the iPhone since its launch there in November. "We are currently in talks with Apple to offer both the iPhone and the iPad, but there are some noises about problems with the latest iPhone, so we're worried," said SK Telecom chief Man-won Jung in a recent interview.
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