Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Number across entire company

This is of course just informed speculation. But based on the numbers I've heard for L2-L3's in various organizations, the absolutely minimum number for cuts has been about 30% of badged workforce.

This means that of every supervising manager that I know across IT, finance, HR, business, and consumer, the LOWEST number any of them has been given is 30%. Many are at 40% and I've heard number as high as 60%.

Even at the low end of this scale, applied across the company, we are looking at close to 100,000 layoffs. I am not as familiar with the bargained workforce, but I have to assume the numbers won't be as severe.

Just remember, your "leadership" team has fumbled nearly every major step of the past ten years. From bungling T-Mobile, destroying DirecTV, dropping U-verse, failing to build out the fiber network to every home in the footprint, to destroying the company with a disastrous purchase of Time Warner.

All the while, your leaders are borrowing tens of billions of dollars to pay stock dividends on profits that don't exist, because executive compensation is tied to stock price... and nothing else. And they convinced the government to give them tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks and to remove important net neutrality protections. And they remain at the bottom of the list on customer service.

Most recently, you can see this failure in their inability to connect people during the pandemic, by having absolutely no service across huge swaths of their footprint. They abandoned the company's core strength - connectivity - and the company failed the country when it was needed most.

This is scandal-worthy material, but it doesn't mean that it won't have real and profound effects on huge portions of the hard-working employees not in the executive echo chamber.

Good luck and best wishes to everyone during this time.

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| 5106 views | | 20 replies (last June 15, 2020) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+15tlw10J

20 replies (most recent on top)

Of course the peanut butter is not going to be spread evenly, that would be a dumb way of doing this. My understanding is ATO is going to be hit very hard. If you are not in architecture or operations you are at risk. Even those two groups are at risk but my understanding is that is all that will be left of ATO. There have been about 20 VP retirements in the last 2 weeks, although I don't have direct knowledge I would bet my rediculous government salary that was part of the consolidation and flattening effort. BTY, I do not have a government salary but Transformers is a great movie for quotes if you feel you are entitled to the true, I want answers. Sorry I digress, it's been a long day.

It sounds to like the person who started this thread and many on it work for a very unethical company. If you do you should seek employment elsewhere rather that stay and collect a paycheck from such a dishonest company. I had not heard of the no service issue across huge swaths of their footprint.

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Post ID: @liu+15tlw10J

If you are one of the laid off consider it a blessing in disguise. My husband was an I & R manager and was hit with a lay-off during the rounds in 2019. Literally best thing that ever happened to us. He is with a wonderful new company making more money and less stress and 100% job security. I promise there is life after AT&T

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Post ID: @fli+15tlw10J

ngq -

Good point. I counted total employee numbers, including TW. I have no idea if TW will be hit as hard or not. I will assume your 180K is correct for T employees. Even at 30%, it's close to 60,000 employees at a minimum.

I have no motive other than talking about the magnitude I'm hearing about.

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Post ID: @kca+15tlw10J

This checks out based on the underground rumors I've been hearing for quite some time. So at this time, now about 40% whack, massive chunks hit at once. To the tune of something like ~15K a swing throughout each remaining quarter of 2020. Welcome to 2020 Vision. Day gonna FocUs

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Post ID: @soj+15tlw10J

Again, not sure of your motives or if you are an actual employee, your numbers are way off. There are only 185k employees under Stankey (excluding TW talent), so essential you are insinuating that there will be a surplus of 57% (up from your hypothetical 49.999 most not affected number). And by the way the largest headcount resides in ATO.

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Post ID: @ngq+15tlw10J

ciw - you need to read and not just skim.

The 49.999% number was just a hypothetical tossed out about Fresh's "most people won't be affected" comment. It was not offered as an actual number.

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Post ID: @nmd+15tlw10J

40% reduction in an org of 5k, with a 5-10 % reduction in an org 30k does not equate to 49.999% reduction. If you are an employee, go into amplify and find for yourself what the total headcount numbers are for those orgs that you “heard” about.

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Post ID: @ciw+15tlw10J

lat -
The vast majority of large organizations (business, consumer, finance, HR) are getting cut, and samples in all of those organizations are in the range specified. I will suggest that based on what I know, there is not a single organization that will remain unaffected at the L4 (ED/AVP) level or above. If you think that a few stray directors who aren't losing people is going to offset that, I think you'll be sorely mistaken.

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Post ID: @plo+15tlw10J

“ Some groups are getting cut 30%, others by 60%.” Yes, that is correct for some organizations. However there are some organizations not being touched at all (fact). Hence, the peanut butter not being spread evenly.

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Post ID: @lat+15tlw10J

"most workers will not be affected,"

Jeffy has been very consistent, consistent at lying, so when he says that what he means is that most will be affected. Maybe not this round, but from the current head count you can count on 50% being gone in two years.

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Post ID: @ejl+15tlw10J

OP is spot on. execs screw up and buy everything and get rewarded while the people who enabled them to buy everything get screwed. pretty backwards and is criminal in my book. but when there is no corporate governance the robbers are judge and jury. fox guarding the hen house as they say.

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Post ID: @azj+15tlw10J

hem -

You're right. Freshy said that. And the peanut butter is indeed not being spread evenly. Some groups are getting cut 30%, others by 60%.

He also said "most workers will not be affected," a promise that'll be kept as long as only 49.999% of employees or fewer are surplussed.

I'm not wishing these numbers. I'm just reporting them.

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Post ID: @fbo+15tlw10J

Op, I called b—s— on your numbers because “the peanut butter will not be spread evenly”. Are you an employee?

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Post ID: @hem+15tlw10J

zpl -

OP here. This is not a total number of L2s and L3s. It's a total across all levels. L2 and L3 refers to the levels of the managers I know who have received their force reduction numbers.

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Post ID: @jyn+15tlw10J

There aren’t that many L2 and L3s in the company. L2 gets hit every round.

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Post ID: @zpl+15tlw10J

30% of L1-L4 is a reasonable number for cutting! Cutting the redundancies, eliminating unnecessary tasks and focusing on what is required!

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Post ID: @kae+15tlw10J

100,000 employees is just not possible. That's approximately 40+% of the work force.

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Post ID: @uva+15tlw10J

ipg - OP here. I'm not claiming I have inside information. This is just based on extrapolating a sample set of numbers from groups of supervisors in various organizations. That's what sampling is. I truly hope it's not nearly that big, but thus far not a single data point shows anything less. Even if it's 30%, it's going to be more than 80,000 employees, not including contractors.

Good luck to you and your coworkers.

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Post ID: @ggg+15tlw10J

"executive compensation is tied to stock price... and nothing else"

And there is the crux of the problem. But hey, this is America. So it's much more important that the uber-rich continue to have their dividend than for the rest of us to have jobs.

Temporarily cutting the dividend by 50 or 75% until the company begins to grow again would save tens of thousands of jobs. But it would mean that the predatory investors and AT&T top brass wouldn't get as much extra money. So by all means, save that precious dividend! The rest of us ... we're fertilizer.

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Post ID: @fic+15tlw10J

I call b—s— on your numbers...100,000, really?. The obvious reason is because you went from the numbers to an executive diatribe immediately after stating “your” numbers. Some one in the know wouldn’t pen a post as such.

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Post ID: @ipg+15tlw10J

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