Elion keen to hire more staff for intragroup tasks

Photo: Raigo Pajula

The Estonian fixed line telecommunications provider AS Elion Ettevotted has received no guidelines from Teliasonera in connection with the wave of redundancies at its parent and intends to hire more people for the provision of intragroup services instead.

"If the plans regarding the provision of services to other Teliasonera companies materialize, we will hire about 100 people," Elion's personnel director Maria Kutt told BNS. She said that added to this will be regular hiring, regarding the on the scope of which no exact forecasts can be offered for the full year.

"While we are conducting rearrangements within our staff, these activities do not depend on Teliasonera," said Kutt. There are jobs, for instance, that will disappear after some time as human labor is replaced by automated systems, she added.

During 2012, Elion hired 258 new workers and the number of personnel as of year-end was 1,629.

With 500 employees, EMT is one of the smallest units in Teliasonera group, but the group's overall activity may affect EMT too, AS EMT communications chief for services, Kristina Samra, told BNS. At the same time, the group hasn't made concrete decisions as regards individual countries and it isn't possible to say now when they will be made, she added.

EMT indeed needs to make efforts to increase efficiency, Samra said. "Since the business of the telecommunications sector is on a downward trend, efficiency definitely is in greater focus now than ever before."

Teliasonera, the Swedish parent of Elion and EMT, announced on Thursday that it will go on implementing the efficiency program made public in October which will lead to 1,800 redundancies in the Nordic and Baltic countries this year.