Vodafone announced redundancy of 500 jobs in the UK as part of stringent measures to minimise costs.

The cuts from 10,000-strong workforce of the UK, is aimed at £1 billion of savings worldwide in next 2 years up to March 2011.

As the sales of hand sets plummeted and recession in the UK and key markets deepened, conditions at Vodafone started worsening.

The job cuts are applied across the business, with 170 redundancies from headquarters, excluding retail staff.

Affected employees were informed about the decision today. Some are expected to leave immediately while others will go through company’s normal process of counselling.

According to Vodafone spokeswoman, company has announced reductions in operating costs in order to remain competitive in the UK market. She added that since customers expect best value in mobile services, Vodafone is attempting to lower its cost base whilst investing in new products and services to fulfil changing needs of customer.

Vodafone is creating 100 new roles in its services this year, focussing investment on retail estate and online offerings.

Vodafone has set target to save £500 million by 31 March 2010 and is cutting costs across the group. It had unveiled cost reduction plans last November as part of strategy to ward off recession’s impact on consumer spending.

Things to consider:
Counselling
graduate jobs