The Kansas City Star reports that in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Sprint Corp. indicated that it's now cutting jobs in an attempt to streamline operations and save money. The job cuts actually started on Tuesday of last week, and they're expected to be mostly completed by the end of the month. These cuts include both management and non-management positions.
Marcelo Claure, who became Sprint's new CEO back in August, warned at the time that layoffs would take place to cut costs and enable Sprint to become a more competitive company. This in turn would bring more value to services offered to its subscribers, including better deals.
Layoffs are expected to occur in a number of departments including technology, network, portfolio management and IT. For now, these are the only groups affected by the layoffs. However, the SEC filing stated that "additional material charges associated with future labor reductions may occur in future periods."
The company's SEC filing said that Sprint, the third-largest wireless carrier in the United States, will book a $160 million charge in its fiscal second quarter due to severance and other expenses. As of the end of December 2013, Sprint had 38,000 employees, which shrank down to 36,000 employees as of March 2014. Currently, there are 33,000 employees.
"The decision to reduce our workforce is never an easy one," a statement from Sprint said. "But this, in conjunction with other cost-cutting measures, is necessary to help Sprint lower our costs."
According to USA Today, Sprint has faced billions in losses over the last several fiscal years due to customers cancelling their contracts for better deals at AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile. The company even shut down its Nextel division last year.
Follow Kevin Parrish @exfileme. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
