Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “We welcome today’s confirmation that 1,000 new Openreach engineers will be recruited. It’s a good indicator of the company’s success and is a great opportunity for many people seeking to get into the telecommunications industry. We hope they will all join CWU – the biggest union in the telecoms industry.
“As a union, we have pushed BT hard on the question of resourcing and creating permanent, direct –labour jobs over the use of temporary third party resource. We believe this new wave of recruitment is a major step forward in our resourcing discussions with the company and shows our arguments are bearing fruit.
“We particularly welcome the focus on recruiting long-term unemployed and young people as these are two suggestions we’ve asked the company to act on. With next week being Apprenticeships Week the allocation of 400 of these jobs as apprentices is especially timely. BT has a strong track record on offering popular apprenticeships and the addition of another 400 apprentices to the Openreach engineering team is a very positive step.”