When Nokia agreed to buy SAC Wireless last summer, the North American wireless infrastructure business was just beginning to show signs of a cyclical slowdown. In the six months since, several major contractors have cut their workforces, but SAC Wireless continues to grow.
“We’re definitely hiring,” said SAC Wireless CEO Bill Koziel. “The company has grown pretty significantly in the last six months.” SAC is based in Illinois, but Koziel said the hiring is nationwide. “Some of these are geographies that we’ve been in for some time, we just haven’t grown it to the scale that we’re attempting to now,” he said. “It’s site development specialists, it’s zoning folks, it’s permitting and construction personnel of every type … including tower climbers.”
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SAC benefits from Nokia’s contracts with Sprint and T-Mobile US, the two major carriers that are still in the active phases of their LTE rollouts. AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless are nearing the end of their LTE builds, and AT&T in particular plans to spend less on network projects as it focuses capital and energy on its planned DirecTV and Latin American acquisitions.
Recruiters said that cutbacks have hit Black & Veatch, MasTec, Goodman Networks and BlueStream Professional Services. Velocitel also let workers go ahead of two acquisitions announced earlier this year: Stainless LLC and FDH – now called FDH Velocitel. Goodman Networks has reportedly suffered through two separate rounds of layoffs, and Wireless Estimator reports that 340 employees were let go last month, primarily in the company’s wireless network division.
“There are a lot of folks that are laying people off,” said Koziel. “We’ve seen a tremendous uptick in the amount of resumes that are submitted and we’re seeing it from everyone. Some of our competitors have taken steps to reduce staff and we’re very grateful that we’re in a position where we’re increasing our staff.”
Mergers and acquisitions often result in layoffs, but Nokia’s purchase of SAC Wireless seems to have had the opposite effect. The companies had complimentary skill sets, according to Koziel, with Nokia bringing technology and relationships and SAC bringing strong execution abilities.
“Supply chain is critical,” said Koziel. “We were able to bring a little bit of internal relief to the supply chain challenges that [Nokia] had. … The customers are building or modifying thousands of sites at a time. Bringing a sizable self-perform capability … into the Nokia fold and being able to take that out into the marketplace, it’s starting to address the scalability issue that all the carriers face.”
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