T-Mobile confirms that it laid off workers at its Bellevue HQ

Earlier this month, a nasty rumor spread that T-Mobile was about to layoff a large number of workers at its Bellevue, Washington headquarters. That rumor has now been confirmed more than 3 weeks later by the carrier. 200 to 300 operations staff have been axed and another 100 in marketing have been let go. Employees of all stripes were affected, ranging from Administrative Assistants all the way up the line to Senior Vice Presidents. T-Mobile, in a statement, said that the job cuts were tiny compared to the company's size and that while the company hates to layoff anyone, it will now be able to focus resources to position the company for growth. The carrier made a point of saying that customer service is not affected by the move.

The nation's fourth largest carrier is undergoing some major changes. On Tuesday, it announced a new pricing structure that does away with contracts and subsidized phones. It also announced the launch of LTE services in seven markets and introduced some new handsets for its nascent 4G LTE service including the Samsung GALAXY Note II, which had a firmware update sent out to turn on its LTE radios. Other handsets that are compatible with the operator's LTE service include the BlackBerry Z10, which was launched on Tuesday, and the Apple iPhone 5.

Yes, you read it correctly, T-Mobile finally will launch it's very own Apple iPhone 5 on April 12th. That happens to be the same day that MetroPCS shareholders vote on its merger with T-Mobile. Despite receiving all the necessary regulatory sign offs, the deal could be in jeopardy as institutional stockholder voting firm ISS recommended that MetroPCS shareholders vote against the deal.

Last year, T-Mobile had 36,000 employees of which 4,800 worked in Bellevue. Many at T-Mobile headquarters expected the layoffs to take place today after discovering that conference rooms had been reserved for Thursday by the Human Resources group.


source: SeattleTimes via SlashGear