Orange Business is to cut around 700 jobs in an attempt to cut costs and stall an operational profits slide over the last few years.
With a sales turnover of €7.9 billion, Orange’s business unit has expanded into the cloud and security services markets, relying less on traditional corporate outsourcing contracts, but it has not been able to maintain overall profit margins.
Orange CEO Christel Heydemann (pictured) said last month that Orange Business needed an “intense restructuring plan”, and the unit has now announced the 700 job cuts.
Orange Business employs a total of 5,700, so the maximum percentage jobs cull is around 12%. It is expected that most of the cuts will be made in France.
Most jobs in the growing business areas of cloud, data management and security services are said to be safe, according to the company.
Orange says it is negotiating with the relevant trade unions over how to implement the job cuts.
