Orange has made an apology after telling call centre employees that they could only keep their jobs if they moved to new offices … in the Philippines. The Telegraph reported on the story.
The company, which has cut 1,200 jobs since it merged with T-Mobile to create Everything Everywhere, told 40 night shift workers at its Darlington call centre that they could take alternative, less lucrative roles, or relocate 7,000 miles to Manila.
Staff claim the company gave them details of a “rice allowance” they could claim as part of the transfer to IBM, who are Orange’s outsource partner in the Philippines.
A spokesman from Everything Everywhere said, “We are continuing discussions with a very small number of employees who have expressed an interest in the option of transferring to Manila .”
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(Reuters) – Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp said first-quarter profit almost tripled, beating forecasts, driven by strong demand for its handsets, particularly those running on the Android operating system.
The company, which has just overtaken erstwhile industry giant Nokia Oyj in terms of market capitalization, said on Friday that unaudited first-quarter net profit was T$14.83 billion ($511 million). Analysts had forecast a profit of T$12.99 billion.
“That its first quarter would be above expectations was well foreseen, Q1 seasonality was better than expected,” said Bonnie Chang, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Hong Kong.
“For the second quarter everyone is expecting revenue sequential growth in the high teens to 20 percent, shipments will be strong and average selling prices are holding up pretty well.”
Growing demand for phones running on Google’s Android platform will help the smartphone market grow in 2011, boosting companies such as HTC and Samsung Electronics who are betting on the platform.
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