KANSAS CITY, Mo. — T-Mobile, which recently merged with fellow telecommunications giant Sprint, announced 241 layoffs at the Overland Park campus.
According to a copy of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter dated June 17, 13 of the affected positions include the title of vice president.
It’s the first wave in what some predict will be a series of layoffs after the companies merged effective April 1.
“This is an ongoing process for T-Mobile,” the company said in the letter to the Kansas Department of Commerce.
Another 31 of the positions eliminated during this round of layoffs included the word director in the title, while another 23 positions stated the word “manager” in the title.
There were approximately 5,000 Sprint employees working at the Overland Park campus a year ago as takeover talks heated up and the two companies awaited word from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission.
The merger was allowed despite concerns from labor and public-interest groups as well as some lawmakers that the consolidation would eliminate jobs and lead to rising consumer prices for cellphone service.
The company, which will use the name T-Mobile moving forward, has committed to keeping a workforce presence at the Overland Park campus, which once housed 23,000 employees.
Sprint had consistently shed jobs year after year recently before T-Mobile’s nearly $25 billion takeover, which started in April 2018. The company said it wasn’t profitable in a filing with the FCC, seeking approval for the merger.
