According to numerous reports, T-Mobile has laid off a ton of employees over the last month. This is despite the original promise of an “increase of jobs” due to the merger.
T-Mobile has apparently laid off numerous positions as part of what they call “organizational changes” within the company. This includes a range of job titles, from financing departments to management to entire care departments and business support. One employee claims over 40% of their training team was gutted.
As part of continual business review, the leadership of your function has determined that some organization changes are required, resulting in the elimination of your position and the difficult decision to terminate your employment…
Part of the layoff letter employees received
Many employees were offered severance packages upon termination. They also have the option to find and apply for an alternate position within the company, however that severance package would then be revoked if they do so.
There is no way to determine exactly how many employees were let go, but rough estimates say many hundreds, if not more. It’s the biggest round of layoffs seen since the merger. It comes a mere 6 months after T-Mobile was paying employees to relocate.
The loss of employees isn’t the only concern, either. The loss of experience that these employees brought to the table is arguably even worse, at least in the eyes of a typical consumer. T-Mobile is theoretically eliminating a thousand or more years of experience and either not replacing that experience or replacing it with new hires that have much less. This isn’t great, especially in places like care departments which interact with customers directly.
Many employees spoken to that have been laid off say the move left a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to T-Mobile. Many thought their jobs were relatively safe, and the termination was a bit of a surprise. The option to find a new role within the company wasn’t even remotely considered as a result, and some are finding new roles in competitor companies.
T-Mobile promised back in 2019 that the merger would create jobs, not eliminate them. The company provided the following statement to Fierce Wireless about the layoffs:
As we continue to hire top talent, with over 2,000 positions open, we are also making normal course-of-business organizational shifts in some areas of the company that will allow us to better focus our resources on being in the places where customers want and need us to be. These shifts primarily affect a small number of ‘back of house’ management and administrative roles. Most impacted employees have been offered different roles. A small number of roles have been eliminated.”
T-Mobile statement to Fierce Wireless
The potential impact to customers has yet to be seen. The quality of T-Mobile’s support has arguably declined over the last few years with customers complaining that employees are untrained and lack the experience necessary to help with their concerns. Layoffs like these may only increase such issues. Hopefully this latest round of layoffs will be the last for T-Mobile for a while.
