Following the announcement of 4,600 “job reductions” back in April, AT&T has announced 12,000 more layoffs this morning. The first notes should start hitting desks sometime this month (“Merry Christmas! Oh, and also, you’re fired.”) and continue trickling out through 2009.
As for who’s at risk:
While AT&T is reducing jobs in some areas, it continues to add jobs in other parts of the business – such as wireless, video and broadband – to meet customer demand.
While they don’t outright name it, there’s not much to AT&T outside of “wireless, video and broadband” besides landlines and the Yellow Pages – neither of which are exactly booming technologies. As a small morsel of good news for those handing over their RFID security badges, AT&T will be allocating about $600 million for severance packages.