Sprint gets ready to ax jobs in $2.5 billion cost-cutting push

Sprint is working on a plan to save US$2 billion-$2.5 billion in costs that will include an unspecified number of job losses, it emerged this week.

The cuts will “inevitably will result in job reductions”, Tarek Robbiati, Sprint’s chief financial officer, wrote in the memo, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The memo comes at the end of a week that started with Sprint announcing it would not take part in the 600 MHz Incentive Auction scheduled for March 2016, explaining that its current spectrum holdings are sufficient to meet demand for existing and future. Sprint’s cost-savings target in that round was $1.5 billion.

In August Telecoms.com reported USA operator Sprint has celebrated “meaningful progress” in its corporate turnaround strategy by appointing a new CFO, COO and CTO. The company had $7.5 billion in operating expenses during the three months ended June 30.

The fourth-largest USA carrier informed employees of the plan earlier this week, days after saying it won’t participate in an upcoming US airwaves auction where it could have won new airwaves at a time when mobile networks are clogged with video traffic.

Translation: we’d rather not spend our money on that right now. We will update this story if we learn more.

“We must change our cost structure so we can fuel our growth and operate more efficiently”, the company said in an e-mailed statement Thursday.

“We believe the steps we are taking across our business are critical to ensuring Sprint is a viable, successful and sustainable business for the foreseeable future”.

It is probably going that a few jobs will probably be impacted nevertheless it was “untimely” to talk about the small print due to the early levels of the method, Tovar stated.