Telstra chief executive Andy Penn said a sharemarket float of struggling pay-TV platform Foxtel remains on the table, while confirming he will slash tens of thousands of contractor jobs at the telecommunications company.

The telco has cut 5000 positions from its indirect workforce over the past 12 months and expects to cut another 25 per cent from its ranks, which would be about 10,000 people, over the next two years.

Telstra chief executive Andy Penn. Credit:James Brickwood

This is on top of about 6000 direct jobs that will be cut by the end of this financial year after an acceleration of 8000 redundancies in total that was revealed by Mr Penn a year ago as part of a radical turnaround strategy for the next few years known as "T22".

Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age after speaking at the Morgan Stanley Australia Summit on Tuesday morning, Mr Penn said he was "the first to admit not everything has played out exactly as predicted" so far in the turnaround.