T-Mobile joins the list of companies laying off staff, announcing it will let 7% go, which translates to 5,000 employees.

The company revealed the news in regulatory filing that included a letter to employees from CEO Mike Sievert:

I am reaching out today to share some important news that I wanted to be sure you heard directly from me. Starting this week, and over the next five weeks, we will be making changes to our organization that will result in the reduction of some positions at the company. These shifts will impact close to 5,000 positions, a little under 7% of our total employees in locations across the country, primarily in corporate and back-office, and some technology roles. The retail and consumer care experts who take care of our customers will not be impacted. After this process is complete, I do not envision any additional widespread company reductions again in the foreseeable future.

Sievert says the layoffs are primarily targeting duplicate roles, as well as areas that are no longer a focus for the company:

Impacted roles are primarily duplicative to other roles, or may be aligned to systems or processes that are changing, or may not fit with our current company priorities. Some areas of the business will be implementing more centralized models where they can improve efficiency and effectiveness and save costs. We’re also taking opportunities to build bigger, broader people manager roles with deeper spans and fewer layers, to provide longer-term growth opportunities. At the same time, we’ll also be decreasing our reliance and spend on external workers and resources.

Sievert goes on to outline the severance package employees can expect, and reassures staff that this is the only expected round of layoffs for the foreseeable future:

We will also provide competitive severance payments based on tenure, plus an additional 60 days minimum of transition leave, which includes pay and benefits, plus accelerated vesting of their next stock vest, continuation of tuition reimbursement benefits, career transition services, and a new T-Mobile alumni service discount good for life. Importantly, employees leaving us in good standing will have privileged access to T-Mobile hiring and recruiting for appropriate roles now and in the future, as we continue to build our organization in other areas.

This is a large change, and an unusual one for our company. We’re tackling the tough decisions now, because I wanted to make sure that people working here are not wondering what’s next, after this process concludes. As I mentioned at the top, because of this, we do not envision making additional large-scale reductions across the company again in the foreseeable future.