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Data #3 shaves staff

ASX-listed integrator joins other Australian IT companies in trimming its workforce because of the poor economic climate
Data#3 has reduced its staff numbers

Data#3 has reduced its staff numbers

ASX-listed integrator, Data#3 (ASX: DTL), has trimmed its head count in reaction to the dour economic climate.

CEO, John Grant, said staff had been made redundant in recent weeks but the number was less than the amount of new staff brought on-board for the year. He would not provide exact figures.

“There is a huge raging fire in the industry about us cutting people. The fact is we have put on a net 21 people this year, so far,” he said. “The other fact is that in some of our businesses that are clearly not going to prosper as much as we would have had prosper in their plans, we have made a couple of cutbacks in line with what is happening in the market; that is prudent management.”

Data #3 joins fellow integrator, UXC (ASX: UXC), which also made about a dozen staff redundant in the past two weeks.

Recent reports also showed the Australian IT&T industry extended its decline in online job ads for the fifth month in a row. The Olivier Job Index fell 4.42 per cent in October with Australian job ads counted per week declining by 20,107 positions over the month.

However, Grant played down the cuts and pointed to the company's on-going investment in and trimming of staff.

“It is no different from how we run our business normally,” he said. “It is just when you get in an obvious trough like now people are looking for people to be doing things.”

The news also comes on the back of the announcement that Data#3 won a multimillion dollar three-year deal with the Department of Defence to provide Microsoft LAR services.

In August, the integrator partly attributed a 28 per cent increase in revenue to a record $363.7 million for the last financial to staff recruitment.

Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.

More about: Data #3, Data#3, Department of Defence, Microsoft, Olivier
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Comments

1

SJG

Sat 04/04/2009 - 17:59

John Grant's Shaving

Hi to all current and future Data#3 staff, just remember 499 is the magic number of employees that keeps Data#3 in the SME space. This is very importnat to them when bidding for QLD Government work and contracts.

Therefore at any time you see the employee numbers grow past 450 and look to be continuing you are very likely to see some roles retrenched to keep under the magic number.

Whilst many may see this as a very strange policy it is one John Grant has put forward at a recent sales conferene to ensure they are still competative in bidding for work using the SME charter therefore placing them at a higher footingthan other larger companies.

Don't say you haven't been warned

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