This isn’t news for any segment of the industry you want to hear, but it could impact the mobile industry a bit: AT&T today announced it would slash 12,000 jobs (or about 4 percent of its total workforce) to cope with an economic downturn that has hurt the industry at large. According to their published numbers, in fact, their mobile business is what’s keeping them afloat, honestly.
AT&T said it will cut the jobs in December and throughout the first half of 2009, and take a hit of about $600 million in this year’s fourth quarter for severance pay. Ouch.
The carrier company attributed the job cuts to economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure. The last part: Good. Too many companies drown in inefficiency and managerial fat. The other parts are probably a smoke screen for just trimming the aforementioned fat.
AT&T said it would provide details on this whole mess in late January.
Who knows how service and other aspects will be impacted as far as the mobile side of things go, but this kind of cut is a pretty scary thing, especially around this time of year.
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