There are job cuts, and then there are BT (NYSE: BT) jobs cuts. The telecoms giant says it will shed 10,000 jobs by this time next year - mainly offshored workers, agency staff and subcontractors - in a bid to reduce staff costs. The company said in its earnings update for the three months to September 30, its Q208, that staff costs rose two percent to £1.32 billion with operating costs at £4.66 billion, largely doe to acquisitions and foreign exchange rates. Combine that with Virgin Media and you have the announcements of 12,000 job cuts in a matter of days. The company stresses the majority of cuts will affect non-direct staff around the world but it is not ruling out cuts for full-time UK staff.

Despite the crunch, these big telecoms companies are still generating cash: BT made £5.3 billion revenue in the quarter, up four percent, although its pre-tax profits of £590 million down 11 percent on the same period last year.  As CEO Ian Livingstone simply puts it in the release: “Three out of four business units - BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach - are delivering ahead of target. But profits for BT Global Services are simply not good enough and we are taking decisive action to put matters right.” Global Services offers digital networking IT services and, despite winning £1.8 billion of new contracts in the quarter, the company has been unable to translate it into profit. But Livingstone is clear about the causes: not the recession: “It would be very, very easy to blame this on external factors but we’re not going to…it’s about us,” he said to analysts this morning (ie. ‘it’s not you, it’s me’). More after jump…

Release | Slides | Webcast 9am GMT

—Full year: BT also today showed us its half-year results to September 30, in which it made £10.4 billion revenue, a three percent increase, with broadband revenues rising three percent to £1.28 billion, offset by a seven percent decline in revenue from phone calls and new lines to £3.24 billion. Entire operating costs for the half, before specifics items and leaver costs, were £9.19 billion, four percent higher than last year largely due to foreign exchange. Efficiency drives – which will of course continue with a vengeance in the next half – delivered savings of £306 million with leaving costs of £109 million.

—Broadband grows: BT added 258,000 net broadband connections in the quarter, bringing its total customer base to 4.6 million, a 27 percent retail market share. This is good news for BT because the revenue it gets from phone calls is slipping: its consumer customer division saw revenue decrease by four percent £1.23 billion, impacted by “lower calls and lines revenue”. Uptake of multiple services helped the 12-month average revenue per customer rate rise to by £5 per household to £283 in the quarter. BT’s VOD box BT Vision added 340,000 in the quarter, a number Livingstone admitted was “a little less than we would have wanted”, though he stressed that close to 90 percent of new customers were taking it.