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Sprint may slash up to 2,500 jobs
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Sprint Nextel said it may cut between 2,000 and 2,500 jobs in an effort to save $350 million annually. The job cuts represent as much as 6 percent of the 42,000 employees Sprint had at the end of the third quarter. The news is the latest blow to the struggling carrier, which despite improvements in customer service and growth in its prepaid business, has continued to lose postpaid subscribers.
The company said that the job cuts will be company-wide and many will be made before year-end. Sprint said it expects to take a charge of between $60 million and $80 million in the fourth quarter because of the severance and other costs of the job cuts. The news also comes the same day that reports said Sprint was planning on making a new, $1 billion investment in Clearwire, the mobile WiMAX operator in which it owns a majority stake.
Sprint said that the changes would not impact customer service, and noted that because of customer service improvements during the past seven quarters, it has been able to close 27 call centers. This is the most significant round of job cuts at Sprint since January, when the company slashed 8,000 jobs. Sprint is also shifting 6,000 employees to Ericsson, which has taken over day-to-day operations of its network.
Sprint had a net loss of $478 million in the third quarter, up from $326 million in the year-ago quarter.
For more:
- see this release
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous | November 9, 2009 - 5:47pm
Glad we are Ericsson now and dont have to go through this crap.
Posted by Anonymous | November 9, 2009 - 7:29pm
No surprise here. All Sprint employees are nothing more than temps. I bet Sprint doesn't lay off any of their cheap Indian labor. No, they will keep them and the problems will continue until the worthless executives have no one else to lay off except themselves.
Most of the talent at Sprint has long gone anyway. Not much there except 300lb sweathogs, office politicians and empty suits with a 100 yard stare.
Words out, Sprint sucks!
Posted by Anonymous | November 9, 2009 - 8:13pm
Yea... all the job cuts will most likely be STATESIDE (In the US) and start at the bottom (customer svc, tech support, billig, retention,etc) and no suits (divison managers, upper and middle management) or foreign out-sourced low-end jobs will be cut.
The cuts in people and pay should start at the veryTOP of the company with NO "golden parachute" severance packages for any of them.
DAN HESSE - CEO should be the first to be fired.
Posted by The Spawn of some Baby bells | November 9, 2009 - 10:52pm
I hate to bad mouth a company that I am very knowledgeable about, but let's face the facts. Sprint is proving quarter after quarter that it is NOT capable of operating or maintaining a wireless company. Sprint executives have proven that they are not an investment worth putting money into.
I hate to be a harsh critic, but it's time For Dan Hessse to invoke the hail mary, and sell what's left to anyone who can do better, and I think there are many. This is the only thing that will make investors happy, maybe they'll see a little return after loosing millions (billions).
Sadly, the truth is that right now, no one is buying, and the only profitable part is Boost/iDEN, which just a few years ago, was the red-headed step child of the company. Hesse could have sold it, but instead muddled the deal with contingencies and the assumption of some debt well beyond the value of the network.
The CDMA network is not worth anything more than it's market valued spectrum, and the depreciated value of it's network/infrastructure.
The Fiber/Wireline/IP side are in the same boat as wireless, a lot of spendy gear, customers, and no one willing to pony up the cash to buy.
Sprint could be the new iconic name for epic failure.
Posted by Alphadog | November 10, 2009 - 11:00am
Well, Forsee - oops I mean Hesse (reading from he same script as Forsee two years ago)tells his troops in an internal memo that good news is just around the corner...get a life!
BOOST was a a short term play and let the suits collect another Short Term Incentive payout (over 100%of plan!). And, they managed to fully fund the pension for those same executives.
Their moves are pretty transparent:
outsource Network - six more months and they can sell off iDEN or CDMA with no severence cost.
Chop staff prior to iPCS and Virgin rollup - gives Dan and CFO Bob Brust two more layoffs/integrations to spin as future "efficiencies".
Keep funding Clearwire and look for a way to take that over in the next year or two.
Brust is still sending memos about saving money by not washing company cars (True story), while flying back and forth to his real home on Martha's Vineyard on the company dollar.
I do feel for the rank and file who are sheep before slaughter. I hope they can get jobs elsewhere where they can look forward instead of over the shoulder, watching for the knife frmo above.
Posted by Anonymous | November 10, 2009 - 12:29pm
Unload iDEN and sell the rest to Google. End of story.
Posted by The evil Spawn of some baby bells. | November 10, 2009 - 8:36pm
So apparently you didn't read the news that Google isn't investing in WiMax/Clear anymore. They sure won't sink a dime into Sprint, unless they wanted to get a penny back.
Posted by Anonymous | November 11, 2009 - 9:18am
I dont know how many times I have to say it but, IDEN IS THE ONLY PROFITABLE THING SPRINT HAS GOING FOR IT AT THE MOMENT. Why would you sell off your cash cow. I still find it funny that the thing Sprint wanted to get rid of in the beginning is the same thing making them money now. Just think if they would have marketed iDEN like they should Sprint would still have the valuable high class business customers on NEXTEL now we have the low class business customers (drug dealers) on Boost. Isn't it funny how things work out.
Posted by Anonymous | November 11, 2009 - 3:26pm
Ya know, every class has to have to dumb kid, every race has a looser, and as a species some get consumed.
Sprint is like that slow kid, or the guy always finishing last, or self consuming itself out of stupidity!
The Evil Spawn of some baby bells is an authority on technology and trends shaping the world of wireless mobility. A respected analyst, consultant, commentator, author and active participant in industry trade organizations, his views have influenced strategies and shaped initiatives for telecom, mobile computing and wireless industry leaders worldwide.
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