Telefónica will make a provision of 1,300 million euros before taxes in its annual accounts to face the recently agreed ERE for 3,421 workers in Spain, 20% of the workforce of the affected Spanish subsidiaries.
As indicated by the company in a note sent to the CNMV, the provision will have no impact on cash and the average annual savings will be around 285 million euros from 2025.
This amount implies a cost of 380,000 euros on average per worker. In 2015, it dedicated 3.7 billion to the departure of 6,300 employees, at an average of 587,000 per person, and in the 2019 voluntary departure plan the effort was 1.73 billion for 2,600 workers, or 665,000 euros on average. In 2021, it provided 1,380 million for the departure of 3,000 people, or about 460,000 euros for each one.
This afternoon the company signed with the workers’ representatives both the ERE and the new agreement until 2026, after the ratification of the agreements between the unions. CCOO was the last of them to join the agreement, in a close vote.
The departures will occur in the three main subsidiaries in Spain, at a rate of 2,958 in Telefónica España, 397 in Telefónica Móviles and 66 in Telefónica Soluciones. These three companies share the same related company agreement.
The figure finally agreed upon for the ERE, the first that the company has addressed since 2015, is 30% lower than the surplus workforce initially calculated by Telefonia, of 5,124 people. It will affect people born in 1968 or earlier with more than 15 years of seniority in the company, for whom remuneration plans have been established until their retirement.
The agreement, reached at the end of December and ratified today, came shortly after the Government ordered the SEPI to purchase a stake of up to 10% of Telefónica to form a Spanish shareholding block that would exercise a counterweight against the entry of Saudi Telecom in the capital.
One of the new features of the collective agreement is that it will make Telefónica the first large Spanish company to establish a 36-hour work week. Now it is 37.5 hours, and the idea is to reduce it at a rate of 30 minutes per year until 2026.
The new agreement also contemplates a salary increase of 1.5% in 2024, 2025 and 2026, and a review in accordance with the CPI upwards at the end of the period to guarantee that workers do not lose purchasing power.
A period of just two months is now open for those interested in the ERE to sign up. Between January 9 and February 8 they can sign up, with the aim that the company will respond to them on February 14 and that most of the departures will occur on the 29th of that month. The ERE will remain open until March 31, 2025.
The unions understand that the company has not only been reducing the functional surplus initially detected and that the conditions offered have been equal to those of the previous exit plan, that of 2021.
In the information sent to the CNMV, Telefónica says that the departures will make the company “more digital, flexible and prepared for future challenges in a highly competitive and profound transformation context.”
The agreement with the workers, he assures, “will allow us to continue betting on loyalty and attracting the best talent, investing in the development of differential capabilities of the workforce through reskilling and placing Telefónica Spain at the forefront in new ways of working and conciliation, on the premises of autonomy, responsibility and contribution to results”.
