Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

@XHkgwpC-vfh Technology truly is changing faster than the skill sets, yes. The thing is T has very inadequate training to help current employees learn or adapt to new skill sets. They cover their base with a cut down, loaded with a thousand acronyms, poor online training courses that would take a college student a semester to learn. The courses are crash and covered in about an hour. There is no longer any real hands on training. AT not to the extent that someone will actually learn. No that is left up to the 20 year employee to do on your own time "The real training that matters". Most have families and don't have the hours in the day to do that. AT&T will hire the new kids that they "need", do away with the old folks that they "don't" and keep on trucking. To your comment about Welfare. No there should not be Welfare, but there should be a real chance to continue. They are just checking boxes and I am happy to say those of us welfare recipients have a lot more to offer than the new kid off the street or straight out of college. We have the real base of knowledge, dedication, show up to work everyday and most importantly-Do whatever it takes to get the service worked and make the customer believe that AT&T is the company they want to spend their money with. In addition we are looking for a few good people, but the gap for the most part is 20 years to almost no years service and the company wonders why things are declining. This is a time to grow, so why do we keep holding back the reigns. NM I know-Wall Street.

@vfh I agree. Jobs were always going to outsourced & automated. The legacy technology was always going to decline.

@1ijm acquisition is the cause, but there was always going to be a decline in companies like DTV. If employment goes up in companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, Disney, then employment is going to go down with their competitors.

If Sears and Toys R Us go under, jobs don't all vanish into the ether, just means you need to go work for Amazon, Walmart, Target.

vfh, it's mind boggling if you think our acquisition history is not the primary cause by far, for the gutting of workforce we are witnessing today. The T-Mobile debacle was over a $4 billion dollar loss by itself. The TW effort, which is not even officially done yet, has a price tag of debt that has the brightest investors in the world scratching their heads wondering how the hell we can ever pay it off. The DTV purchase has proven to be a failure. A few years ago, they couldn't see the insane growth of Netflix and how the fixed dish/cable box model was eroding?? It was obvious to all that we were seeing a shift towards customers preferring internet media delivery. Why the heck go into massive debt buying dish technology that was already on its way out? Then to try and force life into the DTV purchase, we cannibalized it against the huge investments already in place with U-Verse that were actually starting to grow and pay off. It's been 8 years of horrific decisions. I respectfully disagree if you feel otherwise.

Technology is changing faster than skillsets. No matter what acquisitions T made, these cuts would still have to happen. Just like switchboard operators, some skills are no longer needed. Should T keep them employed as a form of welfare?

Good post. It is heartbreaking to see what was once such a huge thriving company with a proud workforce become what it is today. I'm sure folks from GE, Sears, IBM, etc all can say the same thing. In our case though, it certainly didn't have to go this route. The handful of horrible decisions made in the past 5-7 years alone is what has done us in.