Telikom PNG workers numbers have been cut by half under the company’s new human resource policy.
Telikom chief executive officer Michael Donnelly told Loop PNG that 350 employees have been made redundant.
Before the exercise the State owned Telecommunication Company had a staff ceiling of 650 nationwide.
Donnelly said with technology changing, skills and experience, economic performance, business process review and productivity improvement, the need to downsize the workforce was inevitable.
“Most employees are paid when they exit the company, or any delay is due to individual circumstances of individual staff concerned. “
He said the redundancy process is merit based covering all departments within the company.
“We target positions not people.”
“If the requirement is for say 20 clerks and we had 30, all 30 are spilled and the top 20 are filled based on merit based ranking.
“The staff numbers are never fixed. We are actively recruiting graduates,” Donnelly said.
But the Telikom workers union has been against the new policy.
“350 workers are now jobless because of the policy called ‘spill and fill,” says PNG Communication Workers Union president Nug Mamtirim.
He says all redundant employees will be put off the payroll by the end of this month.
Mamtirim said he will seek all avenues to have these workers reinstated.
Caption: File picture.