April 4, 2019, was the date that T-Mobile's then CEO, John Legere, made big and bold promises about the proposed T-Mobile/Sprint merger. A great emphasis was placed on the claim that "The New T-Mobile Will Create Jobs From Day One." Well, to quote a popular John Legere phrase, "it's time to call bullshit."
T-Mobile has done anything but create jobs since April 1, 2020, the date the Sprint and T-Mobile merger officially closed. In fact, T-Mobile has been bleeding jobs at a rapid pace even prior to that closure.
T-Mobile's Employee Layoffs Timeline
Let's take a further look at how John Legere's claim that the "merger is all about creating new, high-quality, high-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from Day One and every day thereafter" has thus far been all "total bullshit."
In February of 2020, T-Mobile laid off an undisclosed number of employees within its Metro by T-Mobile prepaid division. In April of 2020, it was reported that Metro by T-Mobile terminated relationships with all non-exclusive dealerships. That meant that dealers that sold other brands alongside Metro by T-Mobile, would no longer be authorized to sell Metro by T-Mobile services. The change was believed to impact up to 750 dealerships. Unfortunately, that move was followed up with another. In May, it was reported that T-Mobile would close up to 2,000 exclusive Metro by T-Mobile stores.
So much for jobs.
And that brings us up to today. Can you guess what happened today? If you guessed more job losses reported, you are correct. Today, TechCrunch reported that it obtained a leaked audio call that took place yesterday between T-Mobile's Vice President James Kirby and a number of Sprint employees. The call notified Sprint employees that their services would no longer be needed. Several similar calls between Kirby and Sprint employees purportedly took place throughout the day effectively leading to several hundred layoffs that will officially go into effect on August 13, 2020.
TechCrunch also reported that in the leaked call, Kirby is heard telling Sprint employees that the layoffs would make way for 200 new positions. Employees being laid off were encouraged to apply for one of the new jobs.
And that's not all, industry insider and the founder of Boost Mobile, Peter Adderton, stated that T-Mobile's business team has suffered big losses as well.
@TMobile Business team gutted 1100+ and Today @sprint Indirect Account Executives, Indirect Sales managers and Field Sales, Ops Mangrs. Sprint Enterprise Business Mngrs were let go today on Wed all Sprint trainers have a call to find out their fate. Jobs positive merger really ????
— Peter Adderton (@peter_adderton) June 16, 2020
Update: Sources have told Jeff Moore, Principal of Wave7 Research, that many more Metro employees are also in the midst of being laid off.
Wave7 Research previously reported that a big layoff would hit Sprint this week. Also hitting Metro, which is in the midst of greatly reducing its store count. Layoffs happen in waves -- execs, then VPs, then directors. Now, time for the worker bees to be laid off. https://t.co/d7nAuvSHmU
— Jeff Moore (@wave7jeff) June 16, 2020
T-Mobile Initiates Damage Control
In a desperate attempt for damage control, T-Mobile issued a press release today reaffirming its commitment to hire more employees. The release stated that:
"We have kicked off an ambitious hiring initiative to add 5,000 new positions over the next year — in multiple departments across the company, primarily mapping to areas of growth and focused on serving customers such as Retail, Care, T-Mobile for Business, Engineering and network organizations (read more about that, including job descriptions, here). This is a one year initiative but there is more to come!"
While T-Mobile's press release may ultimately prove to be true, it failed to state that to make way for the "new positions" thousands would first have to lose their jobs. And that of course is "total bullshit."