Why it matters: The merger of gigantic companies normally results in job losses. At $26 billion, T-Mobile'south merging with Sprint was one of the largest, but the onetime promised it would create new jobs, not eliminate them. According to a recent study, notwithstanding, the newly combined company has fewer people working for it now than earlier the merger.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed that T-Mobile had 75,000 full-fourth dimension and role-time equivalent workers at the end of 2022, around v,000 fewer than when the merger with Sprint was finalized. The figures make its previous promise sound a niggling hollow: "This merger is all about creating new, high-quality, loftier-paying jobs, and the New T-Mobile will be jobs-positive from 24-hour interval One and every day thereafter," said former CEO John Legere in 2022. "That'south not just a promise. That's not simply a commitment. It'south a fact."

T-Mobile recently decided to close down the TVision tv set channel it started in November, telling employees who still wanted to piece of work in the TV industry that they would need to look elsewhere. While the pandemic has been responsible for many job losses across the world, wireless executives told the Journal that reducing staff was e'er part of the program; Covid-xix just sped up the process.

John Legere

T-Mobile's current CEO, Mike Sievert, said that the company has 6,000 open positions it plans to make full as the economy recovers. T-Mobile also promised to add some other xi,000 jobs past 2024. Only given the falling employee numbers, it'due south easy to look at those claims with a heavy dose of skepticism.

The study states that the number of people employed in the telecommunication sector has crashed from a peak of 1.5 million in 2001 to 690,000 today, with many of the jobs having been outsourced. But it'south worth noting that outside contractors aren't included in US Labor Section figures.

Ane person who walked abroad happy from the merger is Legere. The ex-CEO left with a $136 million severance parcel on the day information technology was completed.

Paradigm credit: m_sovinskii