Eircom Northern Ireland to cut 50 jobs

Eircom, the former Republic of Ireland state telephone company, is set to axe a further 50 jobs at its Northern Ireland operation.

These latest redundancies, which will be in the data handling division, cuts the number of Eircom employees in Northern Ireland to 90, half the number employed at the turn of the year.

The troubled company has recently been cutting jobs as part of a major restructuring strategy that will result in a total of 320 job losses in its operations across the British Isles.

The company said the decision to axe the data handling division was made so they could concentrate on voice calls sector rather than data handling products.

Eircom Northern Ireland, which was established last year, has around 7,000 customers throughout the province.

At the time of its inception the company promised it would create around 500 jobs within five years through an investment of around £25 million in a fibre optic network around Northern Ireland. (MB)