Pay TV MultiChoice South Africa on Tuesday announced that it has commenced with the consultation process aimed at retrenching some of its workforce.

The company revealed last week that as part of the video entertainment company’s realignment of its customer care centre and walk-in-centres it would be consulting more than 2,000 workers with an aim of offering some of them voluntary severance and early retirement packages.

"MultiChoice announced that the two sections of the business would be realigned in response to the changing behaviour of its customers, who are increasingly moving away from traditional voice calls and visits to Walk-in Centres and adopting new self-service and digital technologies to engage with the company," said MultiChoice Group chief executive Calvo Mawela.

"The company has entered into a consultation process with 2,194 of its employees within customer care (call centre) and the walk-in centres.

"In this transition, the MultiChoice will make new roles available for multi-skilled employees with the expertise, skills and technological prowess to enhance the customer experience.

“We are committed to the intent and the spirit of the Section 189 A process as outlined in the Labour Relations Act, and as MultiChoice leadership we will continue to engage impacted employees across the country during the stipulated  consultation period to ensure a reasonable conclusion,” said Mawela.

"MultiChoice is comfortable that it has from the outset conducted its restructuring process following all appropriate processes and procedures in accordance with the prescripts of the Labour Relations Act.

"The first consultation meeting which will be facilitated by an independent commissioner from the CCMA will go ahead as planned and there will be further communication in due course," he said.