ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603180100
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEWARK, N. J.
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
18,000 WORKERS - not the previously announced 30,000 - now will be told to hang it up.
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 now will 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 a buyout offer instead of the 6,500 the company expected, spokesman 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 probably is 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.''
The unexpected number of employees accepting voluntary buyout offers shows the level of fear AT&T staffers have for their job security, Grodsky said.
Meanwhile, the company placed full-page ads in 29 newspapers this week urging other companies to hire the workers it is laying off. It received hundreds of calls to a toll-free line for employers to request more information.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB