Vodafone Layoffs Hitting 11,000 Workers as Carrier's Performance 'Not Good Enough'

Vodafone layoffs will impact 11,000 workers over the next three years as its new CEO says the company’s performance “has not been good enough.”

The cuts are part of a new road map for the UK wireless carrier, following a strategic review conducted over the last five months. CEO Margherita Della Valle said the end result will be a “leaner and simpler organization, to increase our commercial agility and free up resources.”

The Vodafone layoffs will occur both at its headquarters and local markets. Vodafone employs 104,000 people globally, according to its latest annual report.

Vodafone’s Margherita Della Valle

“To consistently deliver, Vodafone must change,” Della Valle said. “My priorities are customers, simplicity and growth. We will simplify our organization, cutting out complexity to regain our competitiveness. We will reallocate resources to deliver the quality service our customers expect and drive further growth from the unique position of Vodafone Business.”

Vodafone Layoffs Latest in Long List of Companies Cutting Jobs

The Vodafone layoffs are just the latest among companies doing business in the channel. Job cuts have impacted thousands of workers since the start of the year. Among the most recent layoffs are Dropbox, Red Hat, CDW, F5 and Akamai.

Vodafone reported $49.7 billion in revenues for its fiscal year ending March 31. That’s roughly unchanged compared to the previous year. However, it issued negative financial guidance for its fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, with a major decrease in free cash flow.

Vodafone‘s target is to be a best-in-class telco in Europe and Africa, and become Europe’s leading platform for business, Della Valle said. Among the changes to achieve this:

Action Plan

“Our turnaround must be built from our strengths, but we need to overcome some clear challenges,” Della Valle said. “We are more complex than we need to be, which limits our local commercial agility.”

In addition to the layoffs, Vodafone‘s action plan includes significant investment reallocation in fiscal year 2024 toward customer experience and brand, a turnaround plan in Germany, and continued pricing action and strategic review in Spain.

“We will change the level of ambition, speed and decisiveness of execution,” Della Valle said. “We will have empowered markets focused on customers, scale up Vodafone Business and take out complexity to simplify how we operate.”