Optus to cut more jobs in restructure

Optus has told staff that it expects to make further job cuts, with another restructure of the business to use IT and network functions from its parent company, Singtel.

As first reported by the Australian Financial Review, the carrier's consumer chief executive Kevin Russell announced the restructure in an email to staff this afternoon.

ZDNet understands that the cut will be substantially lower than the 963 staff cut last year, but the company has yet to determine how many roles will go.

Optus said that the job cuts will come through the "streamlining of IT and network functions to leverage the group scale and drive greater efficiencies".

The mobile product and service development division will be moved from marketing to the customer division. There will be a new division headed up by former VividWireless CEO Martin Mercer for fixed business and National Broadband Network (NBN) opportunities, and there will be a dedicated brand and marketing communications group reporting to Russell.

Optus' vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs David Epstein said the change was part of Optus' transformation program, which started last year.

"These changes will see Optus elevate the prominence of branded activities, increase focus on building its fixed business in an NBN environment, ensure our marketing decisions are customer led, remove duplication, and streamline technology to improve efficiency of its internal IT systems and networks," Epstein said in a statement.

Russell was questioned last week over whether the telco planned to make more staff cuts, but he would not confirm any intentions to cut jobs at that time.

Optus last week reported that in the final three months of 2012, there was a decline in net profits of 9.2 percent to AU$160 million, down from AU$177 million in the previous quarter.