T-Mobile cuts 7 call centers
Three months after federal regulators shot down a proposed merger with AT&T, the telephone giant T-Mobile USA Inc. announced plans last week to shut down seven of its 24 call centers.
T-Mobile will keep open its 600-employee center in Chattanooga and may add more employees to the Lee Highway complex. But the company will close similar call centers in Allentown, Penn.; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Frisco and Brownsville, Texas; Lenexa, Kan.; Thornton, Colo.; and Redmond, Ore.
The shuttered centers collectively employed 3,300 employees. But T-Mobile said in a statement it plans to hire 1,400 extra people at its 17 remaining call centers, including Chattanooga.
The call center consolidation is part of a restructuring T-Mobile announced in February after AT&T had to withdraw its purchase offer and pay T-Mobile $3 billion in breakup fees and also transfer some spectrum licenses to T-Mobile.