T-Mobile Closing Seven Call Centers, Cutting 1,900 Jobs

T-Mobile revealed March 22 that it is forced to close seven of its 24 call centers and eliminate 1,900 staff positions. The move impacts 3,300 people, a majority of whom share jobs.

The Bellevue, Wash.-based telecommunications provider, which parent company Deutsche Telekom AG tried but failed to sell to AT&T for $39 billion in 2011, said in a statement to the media that it must consolidate its call center functions in order to help control costs.

“Concentrating call centers is an important step to achieve competitive cost structures to successfully compete as a challenger and value player in the wireless market,” CEO and President Philipp Humm said in statement to the press. “These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth.”

Call centers to be shuttered are located in Allentown, Pa.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Frisco, Texas; Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kansas; Thornton, Colo.; and Redmond, Ore.

Other Staff Will Be Hired Later

There is a silver lining of sorts regarding the layoffs; T-Mobile also said that at a future date it will be hiring 1,400 people to work in its other 17 call centers. This indicates more of a reorganization of call center functions than simply cutting back on the number of personnel, although the company will have shed 1,900 employees when the consolidation is complete.

Despite the call center closures, T-Mobile has plans to invest in other sections of the company. Humm said T-Mobile “will restructure and optimize operations in other parts of the business, which will take place by the end of second quarter of 2012.”

Those efforts will include a $4 billion modernization of its network, the planned launch of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) technology in 2013 and an investment in 1,000 new sales positions.

T-Mobile is the smallest of the four nationwide carriers in the United States, which also include AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.