AT&T (NYSE: T) has made a clever move to make its buyout of T-Mobile more attractive to government regulators. The huge telecommunications company says it will add 5,000 call-center jobs once the deal is done. The jobs already exist, but they are currently filled overseas.
This plan is a token gesture at best. AT&T employs 260,000 people, and it has laid off thousands in its shrinking landline business. The company’s net employment count in the U.S. is almost certain to fall over the next two years as it makes expense reductions ahead of landline attrition.
Many large American companies are cynical when they make announcements about job additions. Regulators should know better than to take AT&T’s bait. It is hardly a plan to keep employment levels across all of its divisions in America at higher levels than before. What AT&T spends to make good on its promise almost certainly will come out of worker expenses somewhere else.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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