T-Mobile clarifies restructuring plans, will cut only 350 jobs

T-Mobile USA gave a little more clarity to its latest restructuring plans, explaining that it plans to cut a net 350 jobs instead of the 900 it had previously reported.

While the nation's No. 4 carrier is still cutting 900 positions across the company, it also said late Wednesday it would add 550 additional jobs in 2012 "to support the needs of the business and strategic opportunities." The figures bring the carrier's net loss down to 350 employees.

"The majority of the new positions will be located in the Puget Sound area," the company said in a blog post. "These 550 new positions are in addition to the 1,000 new B2B sales representatives T-Mobile plans to hire in the coming years as we aggressively pursue that opportunity."

The carrier said employees who are affected by the restructuring are encouraged to apply for openings that suit their qualifications. The job cuts do not affect technicians in engineering, customer service representatives in T-Mobile's 17 remaining call centers, or front-line retail employees in corporate-owned T-Mobile stores.

T-Mobile announced a net loss of 1,900 jobs in March to consolidate the number of its call centers around the country from 24 down to 17. At the time, the carrier also said it would restructure other parts of its business by the end of May.

Parent company Deutsche Telekom plans to spend up to $4 billion upgrading T-Mobile's network. Speaking at the 40th Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference earlier this week, Deutsche Telekom CFO Timotheus Höttges said T-Mobile USA would be able to stand on its own as it transitions to LTE next year, and would not need to partner or merge with another carrier. However, he also noted that the carrier plans to cut $900 million in costs, though he did not give a specific timeframe for the cuts. He said T-Mobile might reinvest some of that money into the business.

For more:
- see this T-Mobile post

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