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SCMP Reporter

About 270 long-serving managers and technicians at Hongkong Telecom were thrown out of work yesterday in a sweeping move which immediately sparked fears of fresh mass sackings.

 The move, which saw the telecommunications giant drop 6.7 per cent of its supervisory staff, came as the local jobless rate hit a record 4.5 per cent.

 A $100 million compensation package was announced, with redundancy payouts expected to average $370,000.

 Yesterday's layoffs coincided with completion of the 1995 restructuring under which Hongkong Telecom planned to cut 2,500 jobs by early 1998. The firm also sacked 1,100 workers in 1991.

 The management said current dismissals were confined to supervisory staff deemed 'unsuitable for the company's future growth' and promised other staff their jobs were secure.

 'The surplus staff were identified in an earlier organisation review. On average, they had served us for 17 years,' said a Hongkong Telecom spokesman.

 'For the meantime, there is no plan for more layoffs,' he said, declining to comment on reports that some 1,000 jobs were under threat.

 But staff and unionists, briefed by management on the layoffs yesterday morning, remained suspicious.

 Hongkong Telephone Company Staff Association chairman Ip Kwok-fun said the layoffs were unacceptable when the firm recorded a profit of $17 billion for the last financial year.

 The Hongkong Telecom Employees Union said staff feared more sackings would come later this year.

 'If we were sacked because of poor performance, it's okay. But how many of the staff sacked have not done a good job? The sacking is unfair to them,' said union chairman Cheng Chun-man.

 Economist Dr Mo Pak-hung, an assistant professor at Hongkong Baptist University, said job losses were unavoidable with the opening up of the market.

 'In the past, Hongkong Telecom was a monopoly and it could afford to keep a lot of unproductive resources while maintaining excessive profits. It is time to cut fat,' said Dr Mo.

 Those laid off should be able to find work again quickly, because the telecommunications industry was expanding, he said.

 Institute of Human Resources Management spokesman Eddie Ng Hak-kim said: 'Middle-ranking staff are becoming targets for dismissal. They are not needed in either major decision-making or giving services to customers. The creation of their positions was mainly due to rapid expansion of organisations in the past few years.' 



Telecom dumps 270 managers