Telecommunications giant Sprint NYSE: S has announced that it has cut thousands of jobs as part of a drive to try and reduce costs. The fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States, the company has revealed that at least 2500 jobs will go as part of the cost cutting exercise with hopes of reducing costs by $2.5 billion in total. The announcement was made earlier this week by a spokesperson for the company.
According to Michelle Boyd, the spokeswoman for the carrier, most of the job cuts will be in the customer services departments. Call centers have been closed down in a number of areas including Tennessee, New Mexico, Virginia and Texas. Jobs have also been lost at some of its other call centers including Colorado. In addition to this, nearly six hundred jobs have been cut at the company’s headquarters at Overland Park in Kansas.
Looking at ways to cut costs
Sprint has confirmed that it is looking at various ways in which it can cut costs in order to reduce outgoings by $2.5 billion. The jobs cuts are just part of the overall plan and some of the other areas that the company is looking at include network expenses, its IT systems and processes, administration costs and the cost of labor. This comes following concerns from investors with regards to the amount of cash the company has been spending in a bid to upgrade its network and increase its customer base.
The spokeswoman for Sprint also confirmed that employees were contacted via email in relation to the job cuts. They were also notified about severance benefits by email at the same time. Affected employees will be issued with layoff notices prior to the end of January, as after this date there is a reduction in the severance package. Boyd went on to state that part of the reason behind the job cuts was because more and more Sprint customers were turning to the Sprint Zone app in order to get their customer queries resolved, which meant that there was a reduced need for customer service staff in the call centers.
Sprint Corp NYSE: S already slashed its workforce back in 2014, when around 1700 employees lost their jobs. While it has been reported that the most recent job cuts will total at least 2500, the company has not commented on whether there will be further cuts announced over the next few weeks.