AT&T; Plans to Trim Another 8,500 Jobs From Force in 1990

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. plans to trim another 8,500 jobs from its work force in 1990 after cutting about 25,000 this year, the company confirmed today.

AT&T; spokesman Walter G. Murphy said the company has been planning next year’s reductions for some time and has already notified employees.

“The people in the departments that are affected by the job reductions planned for 1990 have been informed,” he said.

The Wall Street Journal reported the cuts in today’s editions and quoted unidentified sources as saying that they could be part of a wider work force reduction campaign in 1990.

Murphy declined to characterize the reductions or to comment on how sweeping they would be.

Most of the 1990 reductions will occur in AT&T;’s Network Services division, which has 37,600 workers and runs AT&T;’s long-distance network, Murphy said. Employees were told on Nov. 28 of plans to reduce the division staff by 6,000 jobs.

Additionally, the company plans to cut 700 jobs in its Business Communications Systems unit, 1,400 jobs in its Material Management & Service unit and 400 jobs in its General Business Systems division in 1990.

The Business Communications Systems unit, which supplies office phone services to big businesses, has 15,000 workers while the General Business Systems division, which handles phone service for smaller companies, has 11,200 workers. Material Management & Services has 8,700 workers.

Murphy said advances in technology have been behind much of the job cutting at AT&T.; The company envisioned thousands of cuts as it upgrades its long-distance phone network to a more efficient digital system by the end of next year, for instance.

The big communications company has intensified its efforts to streamline operations lately by automating factories and back-office facilities and by breaking itself down into smaller, more focused units.

AT&T; has almost frozen hiring and has instead redeployed existing staff into vacant positions.

“We’re on a drive to right-size this place to be competitive,” Harold W. Burlingame, vice president of human resources at AT&T;, told the Journal. “Our managers are quickly learning that they must focus on costs, customers and competitors.”

Most of this year’s cuts have come through early retirement or attrition, but several thousand have come through unannounced cuts.

Since 1984 when the company divested its regional operating companies, AT&T; has cut about 90,000 jobs. The company will have a payroll of about 280,000 employees by January.