T-Mobile is laying off around 5,000 workers

T-Mobile is laying off “a little under” 7 percent of its workforce, affecting about 5,000 roles at the company. The move will mostly impact workers in corporate, back-office, and technology roles, with those in retail or customer care positions remaining unaffected.

Other carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, are contending with layoffs, but T-Mobile specifically promised to keep adding jobs following its merger with Sprint in 2020. Despite this commitment, the company laid off hundreds of workers shortly after, while a 2021 report from The Wall Street Journal found that T-Mobile employed 5,000 fewer people at the end of 2020 when compared to before it merged with Sprint.

“What it takes to attract and retain customers is materially more expensive than it was just a few quarters ago,” writes CEO Mike Sievert in a memo to employees, adding that its existing strategies are not enough to “deliver on these changing customer expectations going forward.” In addition to the layoffs, Sievert says the company will need to work toward “re-prioritizing” its work and “optimizing every dollar” as it deals with rising costs.

T-Mobile doesn’t expect any additional companywide layoffs for the “foreseeable future,” Sievert notes. The carrier will complete layoff notifications by the end of September and will also offer affected employees severance pay based on tenure, along with 60 days of minimum transition leave.

This year alone, T-Mobile has already suffered two data breaches (and that’s on top of the several other cybersecurity incidents that occurred within the past few years). T-Mobile has also been working to bolster its 5G offerings, including the introduction of a faster 5G network capable of delivering speeds of up to 3.3Gbp, along with the launch of a new $100 per month Go5G plan that offers yearly phone upgrades.