Sprint is making good on its promise to drastically reduce operating costs over a six-month period, handing out pink slips to thousands of employees across six customer care centers and its headquarters.
The nation's fourth largest wireless provider has reduced its headcount by at least 2,500, a figure that includes 574 job cuts at its Overland Park, Kansas, headquarters. The company's customer service division was hit the hardest, Sprint spokesperson Michelle Boyd told Reuters.
As a result, call centers in New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia have shut down. Boyd said subscribers are increasingly using the Sprint Zone app and going online for customer care needs, thus lessening the need for an abundance of call center employees.
Employees were notified of their termination last week via e-mail. Details regarding severance packages (for those that qualified) were also communicated at that time.
Shares in the telecom are down more than 12 percent in after-hours trading as of writing.
Sprint employed roughly 42,000 people in 2009 but over the years, we've seen the wireless provider slowly chip away at that figure. In early 2014, the company shut down 55 stores and laid off 330 repair technicians before launching a month-long series of cuts in October. By the end of March 2015, Sprint had just 31,000 people on its payroll.
Three months ago, Sprint CFO Tarek Robbiati said in a memo to staff that they plan to reduce operating costs by $2.5 billion over the following six months.
Lead image courtesy Mike Blake, Reuters