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Sprint Announces 2,000 Layoffs

Mike Mozart
/
Flickr--CC

Sprint Corp. announced Monday that it would layoff at least 2,000 employees.

The cuts, which are expected to save Sprint around $400 million, are part of an aggressive cost-cutting package introduced by CEO Marcelo Claure, a Bolivian businessman who took over from ousted CEO Dan Hesse in August.

“The Sprint brand was weak," Claure told investors during an earnings call Monday. "We had no clear value proposition for consumers. The measure of our own customer’s willingness to recommend Sprint was the lowest among the four big wireless carriers.”

Also Monday, the Kansas company, which is owned by Tokyo-based SoftBank Corp., divulged that it went further in the red in the second quarter. Sprint posted a loss of $765 million on $8.5 billion in revenue, the company reported. 

Claure, the founder of Brightstar Corp., now a subsidy of Softbank, has pledged to make Sprint “the wireless carrier of choice in the U.S.” Since taking the reign, he has dissolved the carrier's signature "Framily Plan" and lowered rates.

"Our brand is now positioned to deliver the best value in wireless," says Claure. "We're committed to being a nimble and aggressive competitor in the marketplace."

Claure says he'll spend 2015 focused on eliminating the reasons why customers are leaving Sprint in favor of other carriers and continuing to cut costs.

It's as-yet unclear how many of the layoffs will impact the telecommunication giant's Overland Park headquarters, where about 7,000 people work.

A California native, Briana comes to KCUR by way of KMUW in Wichita, Kan. and KUSP in Santa Cruz, Calif.
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