U.S. employees got notices, and not just copper or telco necessarily, across the board.
Lumen runs very asset and sales heavy, underfunded for years in ops and strategic portfolio development.
From a leadership perspective, Lumen had to do this, again, like they have been for years, but they may have always gone the wrong way about it, it is more like a lottery rather than following a strategy, reactive to market pressure.
Speculatively speaking, and having seen this many times before, for those remaining in the workforce as with other RIFs, things will continue to be difficult to turnaround, budget and resource cuts everywhere, chaos getting things done, customers churning while there's very little new revenue, zero innovation, and a market-naive executive leadership that unfortunately has no idea of what middle management is steering them towards strategically.
This time around with Kate, they may have their heart in the right place but the survivors with influence upstream will keep riding them, spinning their wheels on long-term, DOA initiatives as they have with all other prior leadership. Lumen needs to bring external talent to challenge what these folks have to say, which ironically enough is what people getting laid off would've said if asked.
I wouldn't be surprised of another merger, soon to sell U.S. assets before they lose their value to pay off some debt, a spinoff of some business unit or even a bankruptcy 5 years down the road after CxOs cash out.
Best of luck to Lumen and everyone.