Sprint said its jobs plan is tied to a recent agreement between chairman Masayoshi Son and President-elect Donald Trump, with focus on customer care, sales.
Sprint looks set to reverse course on its recent history of job cuts and outsourcing, announcing plans to “bring back” 5,000 jobs to the United States.
The carrier, which is owned by SoftBank, said the jobs would “support a variety of functions across the organization including its customer care and sales teams,” and that it planned to begin discussions with its business partners, states and cities to determine where the jobs would be created. The new jobs are expected to be in place by the end of the carrier’s fiscal year 2017, which ends on March 31, 2018.
The move was announced in connection with comments from President-elect Donald Trump, who said the agreement was made through SoftBank and Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son. Trump met with Son earlier this month in New York City, where the executive said he planned to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 new jobs.
“We are excited to work with President-elect Trump and his administration to do our part to drive economic growth and create jobs in the U.S.,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure. “We believe it is critical for business and government to partner together to create more job opportunities in the U.S. and ensure prosperity for all Americans.”
Claure was a supporter of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but has since looked to get on the good side of Trump, who could have an impact on Sprint’s future.
Sprint has been slashing thousands of jobs in an attempt to cut costs as part of a broader plan to trim as much as $2.5 billion in operating expenses. Many of those job cuts have been in call centers.
However, more recently the carrier has looked to add positions in some channels, including bringing on some network employees from Ericsson as part of a partial renewal of a long-standing network management agreement.
Sprint CFO Tarek Robiatti recently noted the carrier was looking to boost capital expense spending for fiscal year 2017, which could align with the carrier’s plans to tap its vast 2.5 GHz spectrum resources and plans for small cells in support of 5G technology.
“In our mind 2.5 GHz is going to be to 5G what 800 [MHz] is to the 4G world,” Robbiati said.
The mention of work with specific states and cities tied to the new jobs plan could see the carrier look to garner favorable terms on bringing back jobs to specific locations. The carrier has had a close relationship with the city of Chicago in terms of advances to its network, including the early deployment of LTE-Advanced updates on its way to the roll out of “5G” technology, and last year said it planned to add more than 1,000 jobs in the city as part of its “Sprint for Chicago” initiative.
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