Sprint report shows Overland Park headquarters took brunt of layoffs

Sprint Corp.’s recent layoffs claimed 910 jobs in Overland Park during October and November, or more than half of its 1,700 companywide cuts this fall.

The disclosure came in reports Sprint made to Kansas officials under a federal labor law that requires public notice of mass layoffs. The notice is intended to give employees time to prepare for the job loss and make plans to find other work or seek additional training.

A mid-October report from Sprint said the company eliminated 452 headquarters jobs during the first two weeks of October. An update provided to the state Nov. 14 added 458 local layoffs to the count, according to a letter accompanying the update.

“Sprint is eliminating 458 additional positions at our Overland Park campus,” the letter said. “These layoffs will be permanent, meaning there will be no right of recall, and Sprint does not have a ‘bumping’ policy.”

Spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer said Tuesday that all 910 headquarters layoffs were part of the 1,700 job cuts Sprint confirmed earlier this month. It means 53 percent of the cutbacks came at the headquarters.

The company has said its local employment was 6,800 after the recent rounds of layoffs this fall.

Sprint plans to eliminate 2,000 more jobs across the company through a combination of voluntary buyouts and layoffs, if needed. It will boost job cuts since the start of October to 3,700 under a plan to reduce total spending by more than $1.5 billion.

The coming job cuts will leave the company with 29,000 employees.

In March, Sprint said it was cutting 477 jobs at its headquarters. With the fall cutbacks, it means Sprint’s local layoffs this year have climbed to 1,387.

Many of the March job losses came at a customer call center Sprint closed.

Chief executive officer Marcelo Claure, who succeeded Dan Hesse on Aug. 11, has said he will reopen the call center, starting with 200 employees.

Claure has made cost cutting one of his priorities in taking the helm of the nation’s No. 3 wireless carrier. Sprint has been losing its most valuable customers as it battles Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

This story was originally published November 25, 2014 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Sprint report shows Overland Park headquarters took brunt of layoffs."