Sky and PayPal announce thousands of job losses

Sky has announced around 1,000 job losses in the UK this year as it shifts towards more internet-based services, while PayPal has said it will cut another 2,500 jobs globally.

Sky is planning to cut around 4% of its UK workforce in 2024, with a significant number of engineering roles to be affected.

It said it would be entering into a “thorough” consultation period with the affected employees before any final decisions are made.

Several media and telecoms companies have announced redundancies over the past few months. Channel 4 has recently confirmed 200 job cuts, while last year BT said it would cut 55,000 roles by 2030 and Virgin Media O2 said it planned to lay off up to 2,000 people by July 2024.

A Sky spokesperson said: “The launch of Sky Glass and Sky Stream represents a shift in our business to deliver TV over IP (an internet connection) rather than satellite. Increasingly, customers are choosing Sky Glass and Sky Stream which don’t require specialist installation, and that has led us to change the number of roles we need to deliver our services.”

Meanwhile PayPal has said it would cut a further 2,500 jobs on top of the 2,000 it announced last year.

In a memo to employees yesterday, CEO Alex Chriss said PayPal needed to “drive more focus and efficiency, deploy automation and consolidate our technology to reduce complexity and duplication”.

He said it would need to cut its global workforce by around 9% via redundancy and not filling open roles. The affected employees will be notified by the end of this week.

“These decisions were not easy to make, and we are undertaking these actions with tremendous care and consideration. All decisions are subject to consultation, where required by law. True to our values, we will support our employees’ transitions with the utmost respect, support, and compassion,” said Chriss.

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