The ultimate goal is to push toward reducing locations by forcing people out of undesirable locations via firings, forced attrition, etc. This will allow them to offer jobs only in the demographic they want. This slims down the real estate and concentrates all management employees into a very small footprint. In the case of ATT, the end goal is to have all management in Dallas or Atlanta. Problem is the talent pool will be slim. But they don't care because ATT has no vision or innovative spirit, and is perfectly ok with mediocrity, so they will have mostly mediocre employees.
@jmg+1ursr13J makes an excellent point.