Vodafone is estimating between 100 and 140 of its staff will lose their job as the telecommunications company counts the cost of Covid-19.
Photo: 123RF
The company employs about 2000 staff in New Zealand.
In a statement, Vodafone said it started reviewing all its costs in mid-April to address the impact of Covid-19.
"Covid-19 has had a significant financial impact on our business, including reduced roaming and retail revenues, the providing of additional data to customers on unlimited plans for no extra revenue, and the increased risk of bad debt," a spokesperson said.
"This is coupled with changing customer habits such as sustained increases in phone and data use and the increased need for online customer support, meaning we need to both significantly reduce our costs and adapt to the acceleration of digital adoption."
The spokesperson said the company had done everything it could to minimise the impact on staff.
"However unfortunately it is inevitable there will be some job losses to help offset the financial impacts of Covid-19 and accelerate our digital strategies to meet the new needs of our customers.
"Over the next few months, as we continue to reduce costs and reprioritise, we estimate we will be losing between 5-7 percent of our people, depending on how many can be redeployed. Wherever possible, we are looking to redeploy or reskill people. For example most of our Retail team were redeployed in customer roles during alert levels 3 and 4."
Vodafone said it did not apply for the government's wage subsidy programme because it did not meet the threshold.
However, the company said it suffered a substantial decline in revenue because of Covid-19.
