South Africa’s biggest telecoms employer cut 51,000 jobs since 1999

It's not becoming more competitive. The company is dying.
 
Telkom was not only hit by bloat, cadre deployment and the rest, but by technology disruptions, first mobile then fibre (think Whatsapp). It has, however, reinvented itself, adapted to the new technologies and even improved its attitude to its customers.

A lesson for Post Office, Eskom and other SOEs and government departments.
 
Some of this decline was due to political decisions. During the latter half of the 90s their mandate was to roll out communications to those who had not previously had access. This was done in a single-minded fashion, where they abandoned service to the established areas. If you moved house you could not get a line in the suburbs since this was no longer on the priority list. Often faults such as cable theft in the suburbs were not fixed under this paradigm. This led to a lot of their traditional clients shifting to cellphone only (saving on phone costs was also a factor). Around 2000 they had to start disconnecting the new lines they has rolled out in the instances where the users could not pay their bills. This led to a large reduction in the number of lines, especially since the traditional customers who had been compelled to abandon them did not come back.
 
how many jobs have they cut completely though?

they cut tons of permanent staff over the years only to rehire them as contractors, that doesn't count, in fact they end up paying those people MORE than before
 
Colin42 said:
Telkom was not only hit by bloat, cadre deployment and the rest, but by technology disruptions, first mobile then fibre (think Whatsapp). It has, however, reinvented itself, adapted to the new technologies and even improved its attitude to its customers.
Click to expand...
indeed

Colin42 said:
A lesson for Post Office, Eskom and other SOEs and government departments.
Click to expand...
also a lesson for private enterprises like DSTV, completely unable to reinvent itself, but rather bashing its head against the same wall expecting to avoid eventual irrelevance
 
Telkom was gifted billions in state resources and infrastructure. They squandered it all away.
Their behaviour was sheer treason
 
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