T-Mobile And Sprint Merger Could Cost 30,000 Jobs In The US

The proposed merger between T-Mobile and Sprint could result in as many as 30,000 job losses, according to the leader of America’s biggest telecoms union.

Speaking to the House of Representative’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Communications Workers of America (CWA) president, Chris Shelton, said that the deal would destroy American jobs, whilst enriching the foreign owned parent companies of both T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom – Germany) and Sprint (Softbank – Japan).

“Trusting Sprint and T-Mobile with American jobs is like trusting a vampire at a blood bank,” Shelton said.

The CWA estimates that the merger will result in around 30,000 redundancies, with 25,000 of those coming from the retail sector alone.

T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, responded to the allegations, by reminding the Subcommittee that his company had recently acquired MetroPCS, expanding its operations and creating jobs in the process. He also claimed that the newly merged T-Mobile/Sprint entity would require skilled workers to rollout services in rural communities, potentially creating 11,000 new jobs by 2024.

Legere maintains that the merger would dramatically improve connectivity in the US, particularly in rural and hard to reach communities.

“This is a unique merger in that there will be a significant increase in supply,” Legere said.  – Total Telecom