British Telecom, which last week announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs, or 6.3 per cent of its global workforce, has said the retrenchment would not affect India operations which employ over 20,000 people directly and indirectly.

"The majority of the job cuts will be in the UK with the rest peppered around the world and not just in India," a BT spokesperson said.He further added the majority of the job cuts are UK based. That is particularly the case with the direct jobs. The indirect ones are a mix of UK and non-UK roles.

However, he clarified that it is too early to know country specific job cuts. UK-based telecom giant BT has a workforce of over20,000 in India of which 650 are direct employees.

The job cuts were announced after its pre-tax profits slumped by 11 per cent in the first six months of the current year.This is all about BT reducing its reliance on third party contractors, he added.

Company sources further clarified that it is unlikely that the company will cut jobs in emerging markets like India where it has grown by 39 per cent in terms of revenue over 2007.

Tech Mahindra, BT's IT services joint venture with the Mahindra group, has outsourcing contracts. BT also has collaborations with HCL, Infosys, TCS and Wipro.

About 4,000 job losses will affect employees recruited directly by BT.

The cuts will mainly affect agency and contract staff and offshore workers, the company said. BT has a global workforce of 1,60,000. Of the announced 10,000 job cuts, 4,000 have already been made.