The announcement of the proposed cuts — which will affect around 40% of BT’s global workforce — were made today in the company’s full-year earnings 2023 report.

The company currently employs about 130,000 people globally, with around 30,000 serving as contractors. Approximately 80,000 of the 130,000 workforce are UK staff.

The news of the workforce reduction came as the firm said its ongoing “cost transformation” was “on track,” with gross annualised cost savings of £2.1bn since April 2020 against a £3bn target.

In addition to the report revealing the company’s cost-savings thus far, it also shows that BT met market expectations with a 5% rise in full-year adjusted core earnings of £7.9bn, highlighting CEO Philip Jansen’s efforts to cut costs and grow profit.

“By the end of the 2020s BT Group will rely on a much smaller workforce and a significantly reduced cost base. New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future,” said Jansen.

“We have delivered our outlook for FY23: this year we’ve grown both pro forma revenue and EBITDA for the first time in six years while navigating an extraordinary macro-economic backdrop. Over the last four years we have stuck firmly to our strategy and it’s working.”

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The BBC also report that up to a fifth of BT’s proposed workforce cuts are set to come in customer services roles, as staff could be replaced by technologies including generative artificial intelligence, with Jansen supposedly saying that such advanced tech “gives us confidence we can go even further.”

Earlier this week, another British telecoms giant, Vodafone announced that it’s to cut 11,000 jobs in order to save costs.

The around 10% workforce reduction will be made over the next three years, as part of Vodafone’s turnaround plan.