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AT&T looks at sending 3,000 jobs out of country - Carrier
has multi-year cost-reduction program under way. The
Associated Press 11/20/03 REDMOND, WA- AT&T Wireless may cut more than 3,000 jobs next year - about 10 percent of its work force - and send the work overseas, according to a Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal. These cuts would be in addition to 1,900 jobs the company plans to eliminate by the end of next year as it consolidates scattered administrative positions on the two coasts, in the Seattle and New York-New Jersey areas. Those reductions are part of the wireless carrier's effort to trim expenses and emerge in 2005 with the industry's best operating profit margins. The company, based in this east Seattle suburban, now employs about 30,000 people. Officials said Wednesday the company is considering options for sending work overseas, but declined to comment beyond that. "We have a multi-year cost-reduction program under way," spokesman David Caouette said. "We're thoroughly examining all costs in the business, and labor is just one aspect." The company is in talks with Convergys Corp. of Cincinnati and Wipro Ltd. of Bangalore, India, about handing off work - mostly customer service and information technology, the Journal reported. A Convergys spokesman declined to comment Wednesday. A Wipro contact did not immediately return an e-mail message from The Associated Press. But some say AT&T Wireless already is sending jobs overseas. Washtech, a Seattle high-tech workers' organization, cited a confidential report prepared for AT&T Wireless that it obtained and whose authenticity was confirmed by the company. The document - prepared in July by Tata Consultancy Services, a division of a holding company in Mumbai, India - details a process for AT&T Wireless to turn over responsibility for some information technology and help-desk work to Tata. Among other things, the report discusses key tasks TCS staff will need to learn and assigns training responsibilities to various teams. The report also says the first part of the two-phase transition was to begin in August. Caouette declined to say whether AT&T Wireless is putting the plan in place. But he conceded the company may have already laid off workers whose jobs were sent overseas, although he did not know how many were affected. |