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Temporary staff of mobile operators losing jobs

Intense competition leads to cost cutting measures

Md Hasan
Hundreds of temporary employees of the country’s telecoms operators lost their jobs in the last few months as major cellphone companies resort to cost cutting measures amid intense competition that leads to call tariff drops.
The people who have lost jobs were mostly working in sales and services departments on contractual basis.
Mobile company insiders estimate 50 percent of around 20,000 people directly employed in Bangladesh's six mobile phone companies is recruited on contractual or part-time basis.
The massive job cuts started in mid 2007 when maximum mobile operators were fined by
the telecoms regulator for their involvement in illegal international call termination business. Four companies --Grameenphone, Banglalink, AKTEL and Citycell-- paid Tk 585 crore in fines.
Industry insiders said although the mobile phone industry witnessed a massive subscriber acquisition growth during the last one year from 26.66 million in May 2007 to 42.04 million in May 2008, maximum operators are yet to achieve break even points, resulting in job cuts.
But they said in the case of profit making Grameenphone the reason could be the strategy’ to 6et more profits with a minimum number of employees.
After taking charge last year
Grameenphone CEO Anders Jensen announced his cost cutting policy to retain the company's profitability.
Grameenphone's operating profit dropped by 32 percent in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of the last year on increasing costs behind a huge number of customer acquisition.
"I have been serving Grameenphone for the last two and a half years as a contractual employee. When I was recruited the authorities told me that I would be a permanent employee after one year. But it did not happen and I continued working," said a former temporary employee of Grameenphone, who has lost his job recently.
He also said there are other
temporary employees in the company who are facing job cuts.
According to sources, some 500 temporary employees lost jobs in Grameenphone in the last one year.
Operators said they have to follow contractual human resources policy for running their sales and service departments.
"Since we are changing our business strategy, we have to cut some jobs at this moment. But it does not mean that the retrenched employees have no future opportunities," said a high official of Grameenphone."
"We must value them and gradually give them opportunities when we go for new business projects," he added. Maximum mobile phone operators are going for contractual policy, said a Banglalink official, adding, "If you look at the advertisements
of companies, you can find maximum jobs are offered on contractual basis."
hasan@thedailystar.net