PCCW ran up debt when it swallowed C&W HKT

As a result, PCCW has been slow to join the rush among Hong Kong corporations to slim down the payroll.

To date, its only sackings have been 340 people removed from its consumer internet operations in July as the dot.com craze waned.

But now it looks likely that the 506 job losses announced today could be just the start.

"It is not possible to give assurances that there will be no further redundancies," Mr Li said in a letter to the company's 14,000 employees.

Unemployment among Hong Kong's 6m population rose to 5.5% between August and October, an 18-month high, with most redundancies in the financial services industry.

Boom to bust

Mr Li is one of Hong Kong's most high-profile executives.

Son of property-to-telecoms tycoon Li Kashing, PCCW was his vehicle for breaking into the big league in the midst of the technology boom of the late 90s.

The company's meteoric rise was capped by the purchase of HKT.

But the slide in tech valuations since last year means that PCCW is the worst performing blue-chip in Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, having slumped 56% in the year so far.