Over 600 Grameenphone employees fear layoffs

Send
Bangla Tribune Report
Published : 23:23, Oct 05, 2018 | Updated : 23:52, Oct 05, 2018

A night view of GP House (Grameenphone Office)in Dhaka’s Bashundhara Residential Area. PHOTO/Flickr_Telenor Group As many as 654 employees of Grameephone are nervous about an expected round of layoffs, which the leading mobile operator categorically denied.
This news broke after the company announced its “Common Delivery Centre (CDC)” project recently.
Grameenphone, however, termed the project ‘a strategic initiative.’
People familiar with the matter said the new project will replace the company’s technology team where 654 people are currently working.
“Uncertainty looms over the jobs of our technology section’s staffers, who will face layoff if CDC project launches,” Secretary General of Grameephone’s General Employees Union Subtara Das Kohokn told Bangla Tribune.
Explaining why it’s certain, Kohokn said, “Grameephone want to close its technology section and plans to hand over the operation to tech firms like Huawei, Ericsson.”
“These firms will provide services to the mobile operator, so the company will no longer require these employees, obviously meant layoffs,” claimed Khokon.
Angered over the news, these employees gathered in the capital’s Jamuna Future Park on Friday (Oct 5) and staged demonstration throughout the day.
They demanded security to their job and closure of the CDC project.
When Bangla Tribune reached Grameenphone, it said the company is ‘always responsible’ to its staffers and ‘takes no decision that may affect its employment.”
“The company is considering various means for its state-of-art network management and related development processes. This initiative (on CDC) is important to ensure modern network and best customer services,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
“This strategic initiative is dynamic and fitting with the global business idea, which is still in initial phase,” it reads.
Employees of Grameephone gather in the city’s Jamuna Future Park on Friday (Oct 5) and staged demonstration throughout the day.According to figure by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Authority, Grameenphone leads the telecom sector in Bangladesh with a little over 70 million subscribers as of August 2018.
The company employs roughly 2,400 permanent employees to execute its daily operation, its CEO Michael Foley told the media in mid-August this year.
It also earned Tk 63.8 billion in profit in the first half of 2018, a 1.2 percentage points up from the same period in 2017.
Shares of Grameenphone, the Bangladesh unit of Norway’s Telenor, closed at Tk 365.30 at Dhaka Stock Exchange on Oct 4, giving it a market capitalization of over Tk 500 billion.

/hah//hb/
Top