AT&T Corp., under fire for its generous executive salaries at a time it was announcing the layoffs of 30,000 employees, said Friday fewer workers will be fired.
The nation's No. 1 long-distance carrier said it will now lay off 18,000 workers as part of a plan to trim 40,000 jobs over the next two years as it splits into three companies.It still plans to eliminate all those jobs. But fewer people will be fired because 7,300 people took the buyout offer instead of the 6,500 the company expected, spokes-man Ritch Blasi said Friday.
The company anticipates that 4,700 more employees will accept buyouts and another 6,000 will get other jobs within the company as divisions like wireless services and its startup WorldNet Internet access service grows.
GOP presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan and other politicians have criticized AT&T for the job cuts and for chief executive Robert Allen's hefty $3.3 million in compensation last year.
Sheldon Grodsky, an analyst who follows AT&T for Grodsky Associates of South Orange, said the reduction in layoffs is probably meant to quell attacks on the company and boost employee morale. AT&T is trying to make the cuts "less of a horror story," he said.
"It's probably a public relations effort to some extent so that the most visible response to politicians is that it's not so bad," Grodsky said. "They're repairing damage. Their image in communities all across the country has been damaged."
But Blasi denied that the layoff reduction was meant to stem the criticism. "These are business decisions. They are market driven. They're driven by customers," he said.