BT, a British telecom company with operations in 170 countries, is to cut 10,000 jobs from its worldwide workforce by March 2009. The cuts follow a decline in pre-tax profits and are part of wider cost-cutting measures. The posts affected by the restructuring concern agency and contract staff, including offshore workers. It is expected that about 4,000 of the losses will come from BT's 110,000 direct employees, while the remaining 6,000 will come the company's 50,000 contractors. BT has 160,000 employees worldwide of whom about 90,000 are in the UK.