News of the T-Mobile and MetroPCS acquisition first came to light back in October and it was just yesterday when we learned the Department of Justice had given their approval. There is more to the approval process though. We still need word from the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) and Committee on Foreign Investment. Putting that aside for a moment — we now have word of potential layoffs.
T-Mobile hasn’t officially commented on this matter, however sources are reporting that the carrier will begin the process of cutting some jobs. The Seattle Times is reporting that this “may affect more than 100 people in marketing and other groups.” More to the point, it was said those layoffs could begin as soon as today and that the company conference rooms have been reserved for “integration” meetings.
Unfortunately a new round of layoffs is not all that unexpected. In fact, T-Mobile has already been doing just that. Last year saw the loss of more than 4,200 jobs. Of those, 3,300 were from call centers with the remaining 900 being spread company wide. T-Mobile had expected to add some new employees as they built out their business sales group.
Otherwise, touching back on the merger, executive boards from both companies have offered a unanimous approval and as of now it looks like MetroPCS has a shareholder vote scheduled for April 12. MetroPCS has also mentioned that the waiting period (for the antitrust review) has since ended and that if stockholders were to vote against the merger that there would be “no assurance that MetroPCS will be able to deliver the same or better stockholder value.”
[via The Seattle Times]
