Sunday sacks 10pc of workers

Loss-making Sunday Communications, Hong Kong's smallest mobile operator, sacked about 10 per cent of its staff yesterday in a bid to save costs in a brutally competitive market.

Managing director Bruce Hicks said the layoffs would help Sunday save about HK$36 million, or 15 per cent of its labour costs.

'Operators must dramatically control expenses by re-examining their three primary costs of conducting business - real estate, transmission and labour,' Mr Hicks said.

'The redundancy basically occurred in the whole company, including senior management.

'The industry is changing and we have got to change our company . . . keep our operation costs under control,' he said.

Sunday employs 607 staff in Hong Kong and more than 200 in China, who were unaffected in yesterday's layoffs.

Staff were offered compensation of 1.5 months if they left immediately, one staff member said.