Wednesday evening business bulletin
Jun 4 2008 By Andrew Mernin
Mobile phone giant Orange said today that it planned to axe up to 450 jobs under an overhaul of the UK business.
The cuts will come in administrative and management areas, although the group said it also planned to create 500 customer-facing roles.
Orange, which is owned by France Telecom, has 15.8 million mobile customers and 1.1 million broadband users in the UK.
Orange has around 12,500 staff in the UK. It employs 2,500 in customer services in North Tyneside, a further 2,500 customer service staff in Darlington and 2,000 in Bristol in head office and technical functions.
The group also has 1,500 customer service staff in Plymouth, 500 more in London and 350 in St Albans, Hertfordshire. There are 300 staff in Leeds and 200 in Solihull, with the remainder spread across stores or smaller technical sites.
No particular region is being targeted by the cuts.
Services firms sounded a fresh health warning over the UK economy today after the sector saw declining activity for the first time in more than five years during May.
Companies blamed a fall in new business as worried clients postponed spending decisions, according to the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS)/NTC purchasing managers’ index (PMI).
This left the index at 49.8 - below the 50 ``no-change" mark and the first fall in activity since March 2003. Firms also laboured under surging fuel and energy bills as input costs rose at a record pace for the fourth month in a row.
Hotels and restaurant staff bore the brunt of widespread job cuts last month as services employment saw its biggest contraction since the CIPS/NTC began in 1996. This ended 57 successive months of jobs growth.
The figures will be a concern for Bank of England policymakers deciding interest rates this week as the services sector accounts for some 75% of the UK economy.
Manufacturing activity is also at a standstill and construction at its lowest ebb for 11 years, according to other survey data from CIPS this week.
The FTSE 100 Index shed almost 2% today as a stronger dollar put commodity stocks under pressure.
Signals from US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke that more interest rate cuts were unlikely bolstered the greenback and led to crude oil falling below 124 US dollars a barrel - hitting BP and Royal Dutch Shell.
Miners were also impacted by the dollar’s recovery, leaving the Footsie well below the 6,000 mark by the mid-session - down 118.7 points to 5939.
Heavily-weighted BP was off almost 4%, or 22.75p at 581.75p, while Royal Dutch Shell registered a 55p fall to 2029p.
In a poor day for the sector, BG Group was 33p lower at 1232p while prospector Cairn Energy shed 122p to 3226p.
The pound at 5pm was US$1.9545 compared to US$1.9648 at the previous close while the euro at 5pm was £0.7905 compared to £0.7864 at the previous close.
