Latest round of Sprint job cuts to last through Jan. 31
Sprint recently moved on its latest plans to cut jobs, noting in a government filing its “workforce reduction” program began Dec. 16 and would cost the company approximately $150 million.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Sprint said the job cuts were designed to reduce costs, following up on previous comments that it was looking to cut approximately $2.5 billion in operating expense from the company. The carrier said this round of layoffs would be completed by Jan. 31, and include “certain management and non-management positions.”
The expected $150 million in expenses related to the cuts is set to be recognized as a one-time charge in Sprint’s third fiscal quarter of 2015, though additional expenses could spread out through the end of 2016.
Reports out of Sprint earlier this month indicated the carrier’s planned job cuts were on deck, with The Kansas City Star reporting Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure had circulated an email to employees that job cuts had started to take place. The latest round of job cuts are expected to impact “thousands” of employees across Sprint’s operations, which earlier this year totaled more than 31,000 employees.
Sources also indicated Sprint was beginning to thin some of its internal relation organizations, including its domestic investor relations operations.
Previous reports indicated Sprint’s latest round of job cuts was set to begin at the end of January and would include a reduction in compensation packages. Sprint earlier this month shook up its executive structure by naming a new CMO as well as further realigned the company’s geographic positioning into four regions.
The carrier late last year took charges totaling $265 million related to job cuts at its headquarters, which came on top of a previously announced move to slash 2,000 positions.
Sprint has been in the midst of an aggressive pricing battle with rivals as the country’s four nationwide rivals battle it out over a dwindling “customer” base. Sprint in its latest quarter did manage to add high-value smartphone customers during the quarter, which stemmed a long-slide of customer defections that earlier this year resulted in the carrier being surpassed by T-Mobile US as the nation’s No. 3 operator in terms of customer base. Sprint also managed to post more than 1 million net connection additions to its network during the quarter, which was just short of the 1.2 million direct connections added by Verizon Wireless and less than half of the total connections posted by AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile US.
However, the carrier continues to be burdened with what it sees as an unsustainable cost structure and is looking across all operating segments to cut costs.
“Ultimately, we must find a way to grow and optimize the business at the same time,” Claure previously stated. “I understand that some people will be skeptical, believing that those are two mutually exclusive outcomes. Nevertheless, we’re extremely confident that we can execute on both at the same time with the guiding principle that the changes we make in the operating model must be executed in a way that minimizes any disruption to the sales momentum we’re achieving or the customer experience.”
Those plans to seem to include the hiring of additional sales people in certain markets as Sprint looks to bolster its presence in areas where it has updated its network operations. The carrier announced this summer plans to add up to 1,000 jobs in the Chicago area as part of $150 million in planned investments to its LTE network. Earlier this year, Sprint announced plans to add up to 3,500 new jobs as part of a retail expansion following the acquisition of more than 1,400 RadioShack locations.
More recently, as part of a marketing move targeting T-Mobile US stores, Sprint had gift baskets delivered with notes from Claure inviting T-Mobile US store employees to jump ship and included a link to Sprint’s employment website.
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