Enlarge image

Vodafone headquarters in Düsseldorf: “Make it even simpler, faster, leaner and therefore more powerful”

Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/dpa

The upheaval at Vodafone Germany continues - with drastic consequences for employees: With a savings package, the telecommunications provider wants to reduce and relocate a total of around 2,000 jobs. The company announced this in Düsseldorf.

Vodafone currently has around 15,000 employees in Germany, around a third of them in the North Rhine-Westphalia state capital. The program would therefore affect 13 percent of employees. Vodafone wants to save around 400 million euros over the next two years with the package of measures.

In order to achieve the desired financial effect, not only staff positions would be saved, but material and operating costs would also be reduced, said company boss Philipp Rogge in a speech to the employees. The measures involve, for example, systems that are outdated or duplicated after company takeovers. Rogge is leaving the company at the end of March.

Realignment to increase profitability

Vodafone Germany has been in a process of change for years. Under Rogge's predecessor Hannes Ametsreiter, many customers recently complained that Vodafone was unable to keep full-bodied advertising promises when it came to landline connections, for example.

Rogge now explained that Vodafone has begun to realign itself - and has returned to growth with improved networks and offerings in recent quarters. “Vodafone therefore wants to make itself even simpler, faster, leaner and therefore more powerful in the next two years.”

As part of the “transformation program,” “simpler products and services” will be developed in the future. Costs should be reduced primarily by dismantling complex structures and modernizing network elements and IT systems. Vodafone will proceed in a socially responsible manner when it comes to personnel changes, promised Rogge, who only took over management of Ametsreiter in July 2022.

Certain manual tasks would be carried out through increased automation in the future. Vodafone also wants to hire new people in other areas. Growth areas such as the cloud business and “customer-facing positions, especially in the corporate customer area” are to be strengthened with experts.

eru/dpa