The news that BT is offering tens of thousands of employees the chance to take long-term holidays in return for pay cuts is evidence that UK employers are taking a novel approach to the recession in a bid to avoid further job cuts.

British Telecom is offering workers the chance to take a year off if they accept a small proportion of their salary as an upfront payment.

It is part of a raft of measures being introduced by BT to cut costs until the economy improves without having to resort to more redundancies.

The former state telecom company, which employs more the 100,000 people, posted £1.3billion losses for the first quarter of this year.

Other options available to staff include a one-off payment of £1000 for going part-time and giving the parents the opportunity to work around their childrens’ school holidays.

BT cut 15,000 jobs this year, mostly in the UK, and claims these ‘extremely progressive’ measures are necessary to save further losses.

A spokesman said: “BT is known for it’s progressive human resources policies with flexible working.

“Being one of the largest employers in the UK, I think this is an extremely progressive way of managing costs during recessions, rather than making redundancies.”

Last month British Airways, which has posted annual losses of £401 million, asked their staff to work without pay to help the company.

The appeal, sent by e-mail to more than 30,000 workers in the UK, asked them to volunteer for between one week and one month’s unpaid leave, or unpaid work. Around 800 have so far agreed.

Stuart Fowler, of Aviation Job Search.com, said: ”The decision to ask their staff to work without pay was a risky but innovative move by BA which has since been followed by other firms, such as BT, who are keen to hold on to their valued workforce whatever it takes during the economic downturn.

”Although the aviation industry has been badly affected, job seekers shouldn’t be too downhearted. We currently have around 1,500 travel and aviation job vacancies available through out sites and many carriers and travel firms are continuing to recruit.”