AT&T lay-off: to fire 4600 employees

One more mega layoff is planned by another big company. AT&T Inc. plans to lay off 4,600, primarily of officer class or so called white collar employees, which constitute 1.5% of its work force.

The AT&T company management claims that the layoff plans are justified because of its decreasing landline phone business. What is more interesting is that the company plans to employ almost a same number of associates in the wireless, television and broadband services. Hence, the total employee count of AT&T will remain almost the same by the year-end.

As per the news on The Wall Street Journal, AT&T will take a first-quarter pretax charge of $374 million to cover severance costs related to the layoffs. The bulk of the jobs to go will be those of managerial employees in the landline businesses who don't deal with customers, Mr. Sharp said.

Related: AOL lay offs, Motorola Lay-off: Fires 2600 employees & Citibank Layoffs: fires employees

While the number of people AT&T plans to employ will remain the same in the year ahead, the job cuts could nonetheless result in substantial cost savings in the neighborhood of half a billion dollars, estimates Mr. Hodulik.

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