Telkom faces a skills crisis after granting more than 1 500 voluntary severance packages to experienced workers, Solidarity said on Wednesday.
“In more than 57% of the applications which were approved, the employees were close to retirement and that is exactly where Telkom’s wealth of skills is contained,” said spokesperson Marius Croucamp.
He said the severance packages were granted one day after the expiry of an agreement on job security, reached in 2009.
“Telkom now wants to transfer the skills of 945 employees, each with between 10 and 30 years experience in the industry, to remaining Telkom employees who are already functioning under a lot more pressure,” Croucamp said.
Telkom was not able to comment. — Sapa