WorldCom Woes Hit Local Operations; Job Cuts Coming
By ANDREW SIMONS
WorldCom Inc.’s Orange County workers are bracing for job cuts at the Clinton, Miss.-based telecommunications company.
Including the expected cuts and attrition during the last 12 months, WorldCom stands to lose about 25% of its OC staff. By one count, local operations lost nearly 100 people to attrition.
Earlier this month, WorldCom said it planned nearly 200 layoffs across California as part of a larger companywide cutback of 3,700 jobs,or 5% of WorldCom’s total. The company has major facilities in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego and OC.
WorldCom said all major facilities would take hits. Attrition has already included the loss of WorldCom’s Irvine-based director of Southern California Debbie Bowen, a reported favorite among local employees. WorldCom had employed about 450 people in OC as of last fall.
“They haven’t hired anybody new in a long time,” the source said.
Earlier media reports indicated the company was planning a more drastic reduction of up to 7,500 people.
A WorldCom spokeswoman declined to say how many OC workers would be affected by the cuts or comment on the number of people who left the company in the past year.
“We’re trying to protect the privacy of our employees,” said spokeswoman Julie Moore.
The cuts are being made at WorldCom Group, a part of the company that sells telecommunications and data services to businesses.
News of the layoffs has taken its toll at the company’s OC facilities. Morale at the main facilities in Anaheim and Santa Ana has sunk, the source said.
“It’s just not a pleasant place to work,” the source said.
Management duties in OC are said to have shifted north to Los Angeles following Bowen’s departure. WorldCom officials in Los Angeles didn’t return phone calls for this story.
The cuts come as other telecommunications companies have all but stopped hiring locally. Nearly all telecommunications providers have struggled in the past year as demand for their services slowed and technology spending halted. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks also were a factor.
Phone companies such as SBC Communications Inc.’s Pacific Bell, Verizon Communications Inc., Sprint Corp. and AT & T; Corp. either downsized or grew only moderately in the past year.
That stands in stark contrast to what’s happening at wireless service providers, which have grown their staffs. In the past year, three wireless companies,Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless Inc. and Nextel Communications Inc.,added about 800 jobs locally. Those three accounted for nearly all of the employment growth among telecommunications companies in OC.
