Two of Britain’s biggest businesses will cut production and move jobs off the payroll in further evidence of the economic downturn’s impact on the real economy.

Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker, is to halt more production just weeks after it imposed initial cuts across its operations. The Tata-owned group will cut output by 30 per cent and temporarily shut down three blast furnaces. The cuts will run until the end of March.

Separately, BT is to move 500 jobs off its payroll by outsourcing the management of its networks outside the UK to Alcatel-Lucent as the group embarks on a renewed cost-cutting drive after last week’s shock profit warning.

Corus said last month that it was cutting production by 20 per cent, or the equivalent of one million tonnes of crude steel, to run to the end of the year. The group, which was formed from the merger of British Steel and Hoogovens, will close blast furnaces at its plants in Scunthorpe in Humber-side, Port Talbot in South Wales and in the Netherlands. In Britain, Corus has four blast furnaces at Scunthorpe, although one was already idle, two at Port Talbot and one at Teesside, which will not be affected at the moment.

Philippe Varin, chief executive, said: “The current slowdown requires us to adapt our operations to the changing environment with maximum speed.”

He added: “We are adopting responsible measures in the areas of production and costs to optimise our results. Meanwhile, our strategy for long-term growth remains unchanged.”

No jobs will be lost in the newest round of cuts but on Thursday Corus announced 400 are to go in its distribution business.

Michael Leahy, general secretary of Community, the steelworkers’ union, said: “We understand that there will be no permanent capacity cuts. However, we will be having discussions with Corus nationally and locally as to how we might mitigate any damage that may be caused by the shortfall in the order book.” He said the cuts underlined how the economic crisis was hitting manufacturing.

Last Friday £2.1 billion was wiped from BT’s market value as shares slid to a record low after it said it was abandoning profit targets at its global services business and gave warning that earnings for the year would fall below expectations.

The 500 positions being outsourced, including 90 in the UK, are mainly engineering roles and are spread across global services and BT Design and Operate divisions, which create products and run and manage BT’s networks around the world.

The telecoms group is under pressure to tighten its belt as it faces huge outlay on new technologies, including a £1.5 billion investment in a super-fast fibre-optic broadband network.

Ian Livingston, who took over as BT chief executive in May, has a reputation as a cost-cutter, having helped to improve operating cashflow from £88 million in the red to £2.1 billion and reduced debt by £6 billion during his three years as group finance director.

The need to rein in costs and last week’s profit warning have led analysts to speculate that next year’s dividend could be halved.

The jobs will move to Alcatel-Lucent, the world’s largest telecoms equipment maker, as part of a seven-year contract, thought to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, to manage BT’s legacy networks outside the UK.

Steel statistics

- Corus is Europe’s second-largest steel producer with annual revenues of about £12 billion, producing 20 million tonnes of crude steel

- It was formed in 1999 by a merger of British Steel and Koninklijke Hoogovens and was bought by Tata Steel, of India, in April last year

- Corus has three divisions - strip products, long products and distribution and building systems - and employs 42,000 people

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