AT&T Broadband lays off 300 in Atlanta

(Telephony) In an effort to trim costs in a competitive market, AT&T Broadband has laid off approximately 300 Atlanta-area employees.

The cuts affect positions in all areas of the company, including field technicians and call center workers, said Reg Griffin, executive director of communications for AT&T Broadband-Atlanta. The employees were all given severance packages that extend at least three months and include continued health insurance.

The layoffs stem from a review of AT&T Broadband’s Atlanta operations, acquired as part of the AT&T purchase of MediaOne last year.

“In late June/early July we had a brand new senior management team that came to Atlanta,” Griffin said. “One of the things that we began to look at was whether we were really positioned to compete in this new broadband marketplace. Atlanta is a pretty good example of where competition is really occurring.”

This review, combined with more broadly trained technicians and some outsourced call center work led to some positions being deemed superfluous, he said.

The move leaves AT&T Broadband with approximately 1800 Atlanta employees serving about 600,000 homes.

Though the acquisition of MediaOne brought AT&T into markets far beyond Atlanta, Griffin does not expect similar moves in other areas.

“We don’t anticipate [layoffs in other regions] and have no reason to believe that would happen. This was strictly an Atlanta action after looking at the operation. The cost of doing business really exceeded what we thought it should be,” Griffin said.