Bell Canada to cut 2,500 jobs

The changes include a 30 percent reduction in executive jobs revealed earlier this month and about 15 percent of management. The cuts will help save about 300 million Canadian dollars ($294 million) in annual costs, said George Cope, president and new CEO of Bell Canada and parent BCE Inc.

After months of planning, the company is cutting the hierarchy from 11 layers to a maximum of eight.

"This is beyond money," Cope said. "This is about making sure our decisions are made quicker, our pace picks up in the competitive marketplace we're in and that all management is closer to the customer than we were just yesterday in terms of this new structure."

Non-management front-line service positions are not affected, the company said.

The size of the cuts was slightly larger than the 2,000 expected, but the move was supported by analysts and industry observers.

"It's always unfortunate to have job cuts, but from a business point of view and a margins and efficiency point of view, I think Bell needed to do that and that's what private equity does," said analyst Troy Crandall of the MacDougall, MacDougall & MacTier brokerage.

Crandall said he expects another 500 to 1,000 jobs will be cut over time as the company makes strategic changes involving its work force, which numbers about 40,000. Parent company BCE employed more than 54,000 people at the end of last year.

But Carmi Levy, an industry analyst at AR Communications, sees thousands more facing pink slips, including some front-line workers. He said Bell has a more bloated employment hierarchy than traditional rivals such as Telus and Rogers Communications. It also faces new wireless competitors who will survive on relatively skeletal teams, he said.

Levy expects Bell to eventually trim its work force by at least 2,500 more employees.