Telecom Italia to shed up to 15,000 jobs

Telecom Italia is said to be considering cutting up to 15,000 jobs as it faces growing competition in Italy’s fibre broadband sector. According to a report from Bloomberg, which cites ‘people familiar with the matter’, the former incumbent is looking to shed almost 30% of its domestic workforce. The move comes as a response to the recent announcement by state-backed utility firm Enel that it is looking to spend EUR2.5 billion (USD2.9 billion) on the rollout of a nationwide fibre-optic network that can be leased to telecoms service providers. Milan-based fibre network operator Metroweb is also being seen as a potential broadband partner by the likes of Vodafone Italy and Wind Telecomunicazioni, while this week another Italian ISP, Fastweb, unveiled its own plans for a EUR500 million investment into high speed networks which will see it rolling out 200Mbps connections past 50% of the country’s households by 2020.