Next Monday, the 17th, Telefónica has convened the company’s three most representative unions (UGT, CC OO and Sumados-Fetico) to announce its intention to implement a new labor regulation file (ERE) which will affect between 5,000 and 6,000 workers. The adjustment will be voluntary and will include both early retirements and incentivized sick leave, sources familiar with the situation said. The company confirmed the meeting, but assured that the agenda is not closed.
The appointment comes after the presentation of the 2026-2030 Strategic Plan on 4 November, which, while not expressly providing for any work adjustments, envisaged progressive cost savings throughout its duration, from 2,300 million for 2028 to 3,000 million in 2030. These savings also include personnel-related items, as admitted by the group’s CEO, Emilio Gayo, who added that any exit plan requires an agreement with the unions.
The intention of the company chaired by Marc Murtra is to close the agreement on the ERE by the end of this year or at the latest in the first days of January 2026, in order to charge the expenses to the current fiscal year. In this way, the millionaire cost of the ERE can be spread over the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2025, so that 2026 is already free of extraordinary provisions like those that Telefónica suffered in this fiscal year due to the sales of its Latin American subsidiaries, and which caused it losses of 1,080 million euros until September.
The unions were counting on a possible communication from the ERE after the union elections which will take place this Wednesday, November 12, in Telefónica Soluciones.
In this context, it is worth remembering that in mid-October Telefónica and the unions closed the company’s first social framework, an agreement that will serve to unify the rights and commitments of the entire group’s staff in Spain, regardless of the agreement that applies to each worker.
The latest ERE carried out by Telefónica resulted in the exit of 3,420 workers from the company, 33% less than the 5,124 redundancies proposed at the beginning of the negotiations, and the agreement with the unions was closed in January 2024. The adjustment affected the workers of its three main subsidiaries (Telefónica de España, Móviles and Soluciones) and resulted in an affiliation volunteering at the ERE by 106%, for a total of 3,640 applications for the aforementioned 3,420 places.
Costs and savings
The cost of collective layoffs in 2024 was around 1.3 billion euros (before taxes) for the company, which paid on average around 380 thousand euros per worker, a figure lower than the redundancy plans undertaken by the company in recent years. The average saving for the company thanks to the ERE amounts to approximately 285 million euros per year.
Specifically, on Friday 7th, Marc Murtra addressed all Telefónica employees in Europe and Latin America in an internal meeting in a hybrid format (in person and by videoconference) in which he directly expressed his confidence in the new Strategic Plan. Transform and grow on the team’s ability to achieve it.
Accompanied by Emilio Gayo, CEO, and Laura Abasolo, Financial Director, Murtra thanked the professionals for their commitment at a key moment for the company. “We have an ambitious plan ahead of us. We have been courageous, and now it is entirely up to us,” he said, appealing for unity and determination. The president made no reference to the ERE.
The president explained that the plan responds to the need to strengthen Telefónica’s future positioning, despite the poor reaction with which it was received by the market, with a price drop of 16% this week. “We are aware of the significance of the fall we have suffered, but we knew that it could happen. Maybe we don’t like the plan, but it is what we have to do now,” he said, underlining that the process involves complex decisions, but recalled that other large European companies such as the Dutch KPN or British Telecom have gone through similar transformations which, despite generating initial uncertainty, then allowed them to subsequently consolidate their growth and strengthen their competitiveness.
