MCI WorldCom Needs to Add 8,000 Employees a Year, Says CEO
Bloomberg News
November 24, 1998, 3:35 p.m. ET
MCI WorldCom Needs to Add 8,000 Employees a Year, Says CEO
Washington, Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- MCI WorldCom Inc. is so
eager to hire more workers it recently flew airplanes trailing
ads for jobs at its Internet division over the Washington, D.C.
area during rush hour, and over the local football stadium during
a Redskins game.
The biggest challenge for MCI WorldCom Inc., the third
largest U.S. long-distance company, is adding the 8,000 employees
a year the company needs to achieve its growth target, chief
executive Bernard Ebbers said in remarks today at a Greater
Washington Board of Trade luncheon.
MCI WorldCom's fastest growing part is its Internet unit
UUNet Technologies Inc., which Ebbers said is growing at a rate
of 100 percent a year. That means that increasingly the workers
the company hires have to be ''high-tech trained,'' he said.
''Where do we get the people?'' Ebbers asked. Overall, MCI
WorldCom employs about 75,000 people in 65 countries. Because
Fairfax, Virginia-based UUNet Technologies is the fastest growing
unit of the company, there will probably be ''disproportionate
growth'' in the Washington area, said Ebbers.
WorldCom, based in Jackson, Mississippi, completed its $47
billion purchase of MCI Communications Corp. in September. It
controls about a quarter of the $70 billion U.S. long-distance
market, second only to AT&T Corp., and is the top carrier of
Internet traffic, the fastest-growing portion of the
telecommunications industry.
International, Local Business
Ebbers said the second fastest-growing sector for the
company is its international business, with a growth rate of
about 60 percent a year. ''What MCI WorldCom stands for is an
attempt to build a network across the world to all the major
business centers,'' he said. Also, the local telephone business
is a significant opportunity for the company because AT&T Corp.,
WorldCom and other new entrants have only a fraction of the
market, Ebbers said.
One hole in MCI WorldCom's global telecommunications package
is wireless telephone service. While wireless service is
important in the consumer marketplace, ''our focus, however, has
been business customers,'' Ebbers said. He said businesses
generally do not purchase wireless phones for their employees.
''It is not an issue in the business environment.''
Separately, Ebbers said today's announcement that America
Online Inc., the No. 1 online service, would purchase Internet
software maker Netscape Communications Corp. for about $4.2
billion in stock is good for WorldCom. ''AOL is a very, very,
very significant customer of WorldCom,'' he said. ''If it
enhances AOL's business plan, it will certainly contribute to the
revenue growth of WorldCom.''
WorldCom shares climbed 1/16 to 58 5/8 in afternoon trading.
--Heather Fleming in Washington, (202) 624-1835/ah
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