T-Mobile Confirms Hundreds of Layoffs Ahead of MetroPCS Merger

By Arselia Gales

**Editor’s Note: Please click


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for the biggest M&A during that time in the service provider-BSS/OSS spaces.**

Between 200 and 300 employees in T-Mobile’s operations group have been laid off at the carrier’s Bellevue, Wash., headquarters. The cuts took effect on March 28.

These layoffs are in addition to 100 people in the marketing department who lost their jobs in early March, according to the Seattle Times.

T-Mobile released a statement saying that the “operational changes” affect a small number of employees and will help the company with its new strategy and position T-Mobile for growth. T-Mobile is preparing to go public after it merges with MetroPCS in a deal that shareholders are voting on in a little more than a week.

They definitely are whittling down to the leanest organization they can survive with,” Michele Clark told the Times. Clark is an executive assistant in the operations group who was recently laid off.

T-Mobile has not notified the state Employment Security Department of a mass layoff, which may not be required, depending on how it is structured, the Times reported.

The report doesn’t come as a major surprise. T-Mobile has said some employees would be out of work, but it’s nowhere near the thousands predicted at least so far by the Communications Workers of America union. That’s a claim T-Mobile feverishly denies.