AT&T Wireless to Lay Off 1,800 IT Workers
Tuesday April 8, 3:04 pm ET
Reuters
biz.yahoo.com
CHICAGO (Reuters) - AT&T Wireless Services Inc.(NYSE:AWE - News), the nation's third-largest wireless telephone company in terms of customers, will lay off nearly half of its information technology staff and contractors by the end of 2004, a report said on Tuesday.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said the Redmond, Washington-based company planned to cut about 1,800 of its 3,800 IT positions, based on two unidentified sources who were present at an internal meeting where the layoffs were announced.
AT&T Wireless spokesman Mark Siegel declined to comment specifically on the layoffs.
"We've been very public about the fact that we want to do everything we can in an incredibly competitive industry to keep our costs as low as possible while at the same time building our revenues as we move to free cash-flow positive this year," Siegel said.
"We've asked each of our departments to take a look at the best steps they can take to do that. Each department is doing what it needs to do, moving at its own pace to do that."
Siegel said any layoffs resulting from the departments' decisions will likely have a small impact on its overall workforce of about 33,000.
AT&T Wireless surpassed Cingular Wireless (NYSE:SBC - News; NYSE:BLS - News) in 2002 to become the No. 2 U.S. wireless operator in terms of revenue. It has been cutting costs since last year in a move toward achieving positive free cash flow, which is cash flow before financing activities.
The company recently partnered with rival Sprint Corp. (NYSE:FON - News; NYSE:PCS - News) to share the costs of building new wireless transmission towers.
It also signed agreements with Cingular to allow customers of both companies to make calls using each other's networks as well as jointly build networks across U.S. rural highways.
"Our analysis does suggest AT&T Wireless has substantial room to reduce costs, even without increasing its subscriber base," J.P. Morgan telecommunications analyst Thomas Lee, said in a research report on Tuesday.
Lee noted that AT&T Wireless' monthly corporate overhead costs were currently as much as twice that of some of its rivals.
He also said AT&T Wireless needed to lower its roaming expenses, which the company pays when its customers use another company's network to make phone calls.
Siegel said the company's cost-cutting initiatives were "a continuing journey that we will always be on."
"This is what any company in an industry as competitive as ours has to do," he added.
Shares of AT&T Wireless fell 13 cents to $6.76 on the New York Stock Exchange (News - Websites) in Tuesday afternoon trading. |
