https://www.businessinsider.com/att-lays-off-people-in-its-consumer-marketing-unit-2020-8
4 replies (most recent on top)
Can't blame COVID for the surplus situation. AT&T has been actively performing surpluses every quarter since 2012's announcement of the Workforce 2020 initiative. It was suppose go on headcount trimming for five years but AT&T executives got so surplus happy they continued doing it without a hiccup.
The latest reorg now has placed my org under a VP that is bade-employee unfriendly. He has ~6850 employees and of them 62% are contractors. And this new VP called a surplus within a handful of days and trimmed 10%. So much for his infrastructure organization whose budget got kicked to the curb and 5G and now like 5g, an emaciated version of 5G that we call 4Ge.
Don’t know why T keeps blaming the layoffs on Covid-19? Why don’t they just tell it like it is and that’s good old fashioned incompetence of senior management! Once again, they screwed up so badly with DTV and TW acquisitions that it put them in a very precarious and unsustainable position! I think the work units would have more respect for management if they were at least honest about it!
AT&T has laid off 54 employees from its marketing division.
The cuts have impacted employees in New York in the wireless carrier's consumer marketing division, the company confirmed to Business Insider. The company declined to specify what percentage of employees in its marketing organization were affected, but 171 people list themselves as marketing and advertising employees at AT&T in the New York area on LinkedIn.
The company said the layoffs are part of its effort to focus on growth areas and address lower customer demand for some legacy products. It cited "economic impact and changed consumer behaviors" due to COVID-19 as a driver.
An AT&T spokesman reiterated a statement to Business Insider from June, when it cut 3,400 jobs and shut down 250 stores.
"These actions align with our focus on growth areas along with lower customer demand for some legacy products and the economic impact and changed customer behaviors resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic," the spokesman said. "As a result, there will be targeted, but sizable reductions in our workforce across executives, managers and union-represented employees, consistent with our previously announced transformation initiative."
The marketing cuts are in addition to the June cuts and come as AT&T embarks on a multi-year strategy to cut as much as $6 billion in costs under new CEO John Stankey.
AT&T's marketing division has had other changes in recent months. Its chief brand officer Fiona Carter left in June for Goldman Sachs after a reorganization where the consumer marketing team that was just cut was consolidated with the corporate brand team.
AT&T is the No. 3 marketer in the US, behind Amazon and Comcast, and spent $5.48 billion on advertising in 2019, according to Ad Age's DataCenter.
Paywalled