Sky Italia announces further staff cuts
March 13, 2023
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Sky Italia is planning voluntary redundancies or job changes for 800 employees, on top of the 400 announced in 2021. The reorganisation plans were announced by Sky Italia CEO Andrea Duilio at the annual meeting with trade union representatives.
The Italian pay-TV operator explained that the staff cuts are part of ‘an extensive upskilling, reskilling, insourcing and voluntary redundancy plan, which has become necessary in light of the impacts on the business generated by changes in the macroeconomic scenario over the last year.’
According to Sky Italia, the plan envisages “extensive insourcing of activities in various areas, including those of technical support to IT systems, post-production and production activities”.
Italian trade unions Slc CGIL, Fistel Cisl and Uilcom Uil have expressed concern about the move, stressing that they will monitor the reorganisation process closely “to verify that it is indeed a concrete path, and not just an attempt to gain some time before more drastic solutions”.
Sky Italia has 4,700 employees, while another 5,000 are employed by partner companies.
The reorganisation plan comes at a time of a ‘structural crisis’ for the pay-TV and media sector in Italy, exacerbated by the expansion of the streaming platforms.
At the end of 2022, Sky Italia had 4.1 million pay-TV subscribers, a drop of 300,000 compared to 2021.