KPN announces €350 million's cutbacks

KPN will implement 350 million euros in cutbacks over the next three years to accelerate its transition from telephone company to a modern telecom company, the company announced on its investors' day. Whether any jobs will be lost is not yet clear, ANP reports.

One of the cuts the company will make is in labor costs. But that can not be directly translated in a concrete number of full-time jobs being lost, because it also involves the hiring of external staff, a KPN spokesperson said to the news wire. KPN currently employs around 12,600 people full-time.

KPN has been facing declining turnover for some time now, mainly because customers make fewer calls and place more emphasis on data. The cutbacks must help pay for investments in the data network. On Tuesday KPN announced it will invest 1.1 billion euros into the data network.

Profitability also needs to be boosted by updating strategic plans for the next three years. In addition to cost savings, KPN will also focus on growing profitable activities and stabilizing the total turnover.

CEO Maximo Ibarra said KPN made good progress with its business changes over the past years. "But the changing landscape requires that we become more flexible and implement innovations for customers more quickly."