The story about year-end bonuses was a better one.

Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video

January 2, 2018

3 Min Read
AT&T Doles Out End-of-Year Pink Slips

Layoffs were reportedly part of AT&T's year-end plans, though less touted than its employee bonuses.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has been very enthusiastic about the Republican tax bill that was signed into law right before 2017 came to a close. And as a sign of its appreciation, the company announced on December 20 that it would invest an additional $1 billion in the US in 2018 and pay out a bonus of $1,000 each to more than 200,000 domestic employees.

Unfortunately for some, the happy financial news came with a major caveat. Reports are circling that AT&T also laid off up to 2,000 workers (and maybe more) as 2017 wound to its end.

The news was first reported by the New York Post, which noted that 700 DirecTV technicians got the axe before the holidays. Then the Chicago Tribune chronicled another 600 AT&T employees in the Midwest who were terminated. And finally DSLReports shared information from a source saying that the Southwest was home to another 700 company layoffs.

Figure 1:

In response to a request for comment by Light Reading, AT&T addressed the layoff reports by citing technology efficiencies that have made certain positions redundant, and by pointing out that some affected employees will be given other jobs within the company.

"Technology improvements are driving higher efficiencies and there are some areas where demand for our legacy services continues to decline, and we're adjusting our workforce in some of those areas," said a company spokesperson. "Many of the affected employees have a job offer guarantee that ensures they'll be offered another job with the company, and we'll work to find other jobs for as many of them as possible. In other cases we may be hiring the same resources in other regions, and employees would be able to transfer."

The company also noted some specific employee hires in certain geographic areas.

"For some context, we hired nearly 3,700 employees in Texas in 2016, and over 800 in Missouri," said the spokesperson. "Through November of this year we hired over 2,400 Texas and about 650 in Missouri. And we're currently hiring about 360 more in Texas and nearly 70 more in Missouri."

Still, the reported employee trends as a whole run counter to AT&T's suggestion that a new tax bill would create more jobs. Even if the company is replacing some portion of laid-off workers with new hires, there's no evidence today that the net result is a positive one, and no way to get an exact count of employee changes in either direction.

AT&T said recently in a press release that research shows "every $1 billion in capital invested in the telecom industry creates about 7,000 jobs for American workers." (See AT&T Pledges $1B Capital Investment After Tax Reform.)

However, it's not at all clear that past is prologue in this case. Even if AT&T's spending increases as was promised following the tax bill, new jobs are far from guaranteed. Thanks to those "technology improvements" and the rise of automation, the fate of telecom employees is still precarious indeed.

— Mari Silbey, Senior Editor, Cable/Video, Light Reading

About the Author(s)

Mari Silbey

Senior Editor, Cable/Video

Mari Silbey is a senior editor covering broadband infrastructure, video delivery, smart cities and all things cable. Previously, she worked independently for nearly a decade, contributing to trade publications, authoring custom research reports and consulting for a variety of corporate and association clients. Among her storied (and sometimes dubious) achievements, Mari launched the corporate blog for Motorola's Home division way back in 2007, ran a content development program for Limelight Networks and did her best to entertain the video nerd masses as a long-time columnist for the media blog Zatz Not Funny. She is based in Washington, D.C.

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