T-Mobile to Layoff 3,000

You may not know this but the world of cell phone providers can be fiercely competitive, that is when the companies are not busy trying to make sweetheart deals. After all for all intents are purposes once you get past the hype they are all providing a new identical service, the ability to make a call on your cell phone and get internet access if you want it. Unless they have a really coveted piece of hardware as an exclusive, such as when AT&T was the only carrier for the iPhone, convincing customers to come to your service is the major issue. When that does not work the companies are bound to layoff.

That is the case for T-Mobile currently. Today, the company announced that it will be letting go of just shy of 2,000 workers in order to cut back on its costs. The 1,900 workers who are being cut from company’s call centers are being called part of an effort to restructure, though at the current moment there have been no more announcements related to this restructure.

You are probably wondering how bad it is for T-Mobile. Interestingly enough the company isn’t unprofitable but after a failed merger with AT&T some months ago the company has had to make some significant investments in new technology. While the company is hoping to eventually compete with larger carriers like Verizon it has a long way to go in order to make coverage maps and 4G data availability meet up with their major competitors.

Sadly, this is only the beginning of the layoffs for workers at T-Mobile’s call centers. It looks like the company maybe planning to consolidate call centers and cut down its current 24 centers to 17 over an undisclosed amount of time. Some people are estimating that the company will shed more than 3,000 jobs by the time all is said and done.

The company’s only official word about the layoffs came from Philipp Humm, who is the current CEO of T-Mobile in the US, in an official statement released to the media he said,  “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.” One has to wonder if Mr. Humm knows exactly how hard it will be for those workers to find new jobs. No information about any severance or benefits packages that the workers may receive has been given at the current moment. Though the company did state that some workers will be given a chance to relocate to new call centers in order to keep their jobs, they did not say how many would be asked to move in order to keep their jobs.

Once the restructuring was over the company actually plans to hire on new workers for their remaining facilities, in order to meet the customer service needs of their clients. It is expected than they will hire on 1,400 new people when all is said and done. Facilities that are being shut down are spread across the nation.