Orange, Jazztel to fire fifth of workforce after merger


Details

Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 01 February 2016




Orange and Jazztel have announced they will fire 550 workers after concluding their merger in Spain.



The unions, with which Orange has to negotiate the final conditions of the firing process, have already stated their opposition, because both companies declared to the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia that the merger wouldn't affect more than 400 employees.

Immediately after the announcement, the telco pointed out that its workforce is over 7,000 in Spain, so the lay-off would affect less than 4%. But the unions refuted this claim, saying that the company was only firing staff within the telcos divisions with less than 3,000 workers, meaning the process would affect around 20% of the staff.

Representatives of both the workers and the telco will start negotiating after 8 February, when the merger concludes and Jazztel will no longer be an operator in Spain. The negotiations are expected to conclude around mid March.

According to Orange, it intends to create 300 new position for its customer service centres.