Telstra's weak signal
Australia's biggest telco denies AI had anything to do with today's announcement of 2,800 job cuts. Instead, they point to a more worrying challenge facing the telco sector.
In an era where news of mass layoffs heightens macroeconomic anxieties and fear of artificial intelligence, big business needs to be careful about how it bears bad news.
So it’s unusual that Telstra chose today to announce it would be cutting 2,800 staff, or about 9% of its workforce. It came just four days after the company struck a deal with India’s Infosys to outsource software engineering and accelerate its AI transition.
Telstra CEO Vicki Brady said it was a hard decision, but an “absolutely necessary” one. Some of her competitors aren’t so sure.
“This comes across to me as completely tone deaf,” said Macquarie Telecom group executive Luke Clifton. “They did a deal to … implement AI across its engineering platform in a massive outsource deal, then they sack 2,800 staff.”
