Hubby has heard from 3 very trusted contacts in the telecom industry that AT&T has layed off 65% of their global and domestic sales force. Two of these contacts work for AT&T.

Haven't been able to find anything on the to confirm.

Anyone else hear this? I understand cut-backs, downsizing, 'restructuring', etc., ad nauseum, are a fact of life, but 65% seems a bit, well...much.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), October 19, 1999

Answers

65% would mean dire, dire conditions at AT&T. We're talking cutting costs to keep a business above water, not downsizing to strengthen the bottom line.

I can't imagine how Wall Street or the economy would react to this kind of news.

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

That's what we both thought, Michael. Hubby's been in the biz for awhile, and 'hears' a lot of stuff, but he's very careful about who/what he believes, and doesn't take just one person's confirmation. His contacts are people he's known for years, are usually fairly high on the 'food chain' (so to speak) and have proven to be reliable and trustworthy. I don't know how many people this would account for, either. I don't know how large their sales force is. I do know that in other industries - health care, for example - that it's not uncommon for a large corporation to re-tool their marketing strategies, methods, etc., with a resultant initial decrease in sales people. (What sometimes happens, though, is they end up hiring sales people once they see their sales are off due to...guess what?...not enough sales people!)

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

Didn't they just merge with another huge company? They always layoff a lot when they put two companies together, they just make each person do twice as much.

-- @ (@@@.@), October 19, 1999.

You are probably thinking about the proposed merger of Sprint with MCI.

-- Wilferd (WilferdW@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

This could be true. It could be a prepositioning of staff for the rollover cutbacks. The real big layoffs are probably coming just before the rollover.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 19, 1999.

5 cents a minute.

profits????

None!

shh!

-- D.B. (dciinc@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

they have done this kind of massive layoff before and they often hit the marketing/sales folks. boy, i would never take a job with at&t in marketing.

also, we are nearing the end of the year, i expect this to happen big time this year--the usual end of the year layoffs to make the financials look more rosy.

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), October 19, 1999.

Thank God, no more phone calls trying to get me to switch to AT&T.

Capitalism sucks.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

As "tt" noted, major layoffs/downsizing/"reductions in force"/[your favorite euphemism here] tend to occur at year-end. What a great Christmas present, eh?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), October 19, 1999.

We haven't seen the layoffs related to y2k yet.

We will see those around rollover (and play dead) time.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 19, 1999.