T-Mobile cuts its workforce by 7 percent, about 5,000 jobs

T-Mobile announced to its employees that it is planning to reduce its workforce by about 7%, which equates to about 5,000 jobs. In a letter sent to employees, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert wrote that the cuts will impact employees in locations across the country, primarily in corporate and back-office, and some technology roles. This round of cuts will not affect retail and consumer care employees. “After this process is complete, I do not envision any additional widespread company reductions again in the foreseeable future,” wrote Sievert. “Impacted roles are primarily duplicative to other roles, or may be aligned to systems or processes that are changing, or may not fit with our current company priorities.” He added that T-Mobile is going to “build bigger, broader people manager roles with deeper spans and fewer layers…At the same time, we’ll also be decreasing our reliance and spend on external workers and resources.” Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner said, “It’s an admission that when you run a high-octane offense like T-Mobile does, this costs money.” He said T-Mobile mocks its competitors for buying new subscribers with subsidized phones, but recently it’s been doing the same thing. It just launched a new offering that allows people to get a subsidized phone every year. “Acquiring as many customers as they do, costs a lot of money,” said Entner. Whenever Entner sees companies touting 5G standalone core, more automation, artificial intelligence and cloud-native technologies, “I also see job cuts. You need fewer people to deliver more data for lower costs. The two major costs centers are power and people.”