KPN to cut 580 jobs

KPN announced today that they will again be reorganizing and 580 jobs will be lost. This time the blows fall in the departments servicing the corporate market. The layoffs that were announced earlier this year mostly affected the consumer branch of the company. KPN provides communication services, such as telephony and internet connections and newer IT services, such as Cloud Services and Hosting Services, to business customers. According to spokesperson Stefan Simons, it is mainly in the first category where jobs will be lost. "Because many companies are dismissing staff and closing offices through cutbacks, they require fewer cell phones, internet connections and workplaces." Many companies are also making the transition to new technologies such as IP telephony, which are less labor intensive than traditional communication technology. According to Simons, the demand for new IT services that the company offers is insufficient to compensate for the decline in demand for old communication technologies. Companies are still too reluctant to invest in their IT, said the spokesperson. In its budget for 2015 KPN made a provision of 50 million euro for this operation. From 2016 this intervention should result in annual cost savings of 45 million euro. CEO Eelco Blok called the layoffs "drastic, but necessary". This is the second major layoff that KPN announced this year. In February the company scrapped between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs, mainly in the consumer branch.